The Door to Chaos
by Magicflute
Summary: Crossfiction Harry Potter & Chronicles of Riddick. In the Department of Mysteries something crosses the Veil. Riddick. Sirius Black. One body Two people. And that was just the beginning...
1. Chapter 1

_Prologue_

IT WILL HAPPEN TODAY… THE CHOSEN ONE WILL MEET A NEW DARKNESS …AND THE DARKNESS WILL COME FROM A WORLD BEYOND THE THRESHOLD… TODAY, THE CHOSEN ONE WILL MEET THE KNIGHT AND IF TRUST CAN BE SHARED… THE KNIGHT'S ART WILL HELP HIM DEFEAT THE EVIL OF THE DARK LORD … BUT GREAT AND TERRIBLE DANGER WILL FOLLOW THE KNIGHT THROUGH THE DOOR IF THE DOOR IS NOT CLOSED BEFORE THE YEAR DIES…

Professor Trelawney's voice shook, and her overlarge eyes slowly closed behind the huge glasses as the trance left her. The gauzy, spangled shawl around her thin neck was a soft purple today and the many chains, beads, bangles and rings chimed as she slumped in the armchair in Professor Dumbledore's study. After a while, a loud snore attested that she had fallen asleep.

Minerva McGonagall sighed in exasperation. Her beady eyes speared the other woman before her through her square glasses, while she pulled nervously with one hand on her green tartan witch's robe. Her other hand drummed a quick tune on the wooden desk.

She looked up to a painting on the wall and testily snapped, "I really don't understand why you have put up with this old fraud for such a long time, Albus!"

The man in the painting put the tips of his fingers together and watched the two women before him from his vantage point. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. For now, his light blue eyes sparkled behind his half-moon spectacles and his voice translated his amusement when his mild voice reached the new headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry:

"Do I have to remind you that this prophecy was a real one, Minerva? You'll have to give her a rise of salary as I meant to do last year, this would be third real prophecy she's told/given, that makes her anything but a fraud…you know the procedure, my dear?"

"Oh, yes!" She pushed her chair back, put her wand against her head, made a complicated swirl gesture with the wand and murmured, "Oraculum Repono." Her other hand was ready to catch the small glass sphere. She glared as it filled with silver and black smoke and frowned when an engraved label with "Harry Potter / R.B.R." appeared.

"R.B.R. As if the Ministry had not enough to do, what with the Death Eaters and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the Dementors at large and up to who knows what… oh Albus!"

When she looked up to the painting this time, her usually steely eyes looked suspiciously moist.

"I don't know if I can do this…"

"Minerva…" The old man sadly looked back at her. "I trust you with my school and if I do, then you should trust yourself as well. This is no time for doubts; you must keep your faith in the boy and protect all my children as would I…"

She blew her nose on her tartan handkerchief and put it away again. Her slim back straightened in new resolve and her trademark stern gaze was back.

"I know Albus. I wonder though, who the Ministry will appoint for next year's Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. Nobody wants the job! I even have heard rumours that the Minister had given free hand to the Department of Mysteries to find a suitable candidate…and you know what I think of the last teacher they appointed. If the children had not founded their own club they would all have failed at their OWLs, and-"

"Have no worries, Minerva. Somehow I think that this year's teacher will be very different…"

The headmistress snorted and walked over to the still snoring divination teacher.

"Sybill! SYBILL! Don't you have a class to teach in half an hour?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1 – Through the Threshold

The pain was excruciating, but brief. It was followed by... nothing. He could not hear, nor see, nor smell; he did not feel his lungs, his heart, his hands, his feet, he could have been paralysed and not have known it. He should have felt fear, felt anything, but even this was denied to him. All he had left were his thoughts, his memories. It was extremely infuriating. He had no means to tell just how long he just... existed like that, holding on to his spiritual self, his sanity, by sheer willpower alone. And still, he just knew somehow that he was not alone, that there were others around, many others, he could nearly hear them whisper and laugh, hear their agonised cries.

And then, just as shockingly, some sensation returned.

Riddick was still floating in a stark black emptiness, but now some inexorable force was pulling him forward. Something had caught him in a full body grip, something like a strong wind pressing down on every inch of his body. He tried to struggle, to fight back, both furious and grateful for even this bit of sensation brushing against him, but there was nothing to fight against, his arms and legs moved sluggishly and encountered nothing.

His mouth opened wide and he tried to draw a breath. He still could not feel any air entering his lungs, but for the first time he felt the effort roughening his throat when he bellowed his rage at god and death denying him, even though no sound left his lips.

The sensation of movement increased, he was picking up speed. Wherever he was being sent, there was nothing he could do for now. With all his willpower he strangled the feeling of panic rising in him, replacing it by determination. He would not loose himself. Never. Ever. Not for god. Not for death. 

A faint light shimmered before him and the invisible hands pulling at him picked up yet more speed. One of his hands hit a solid object, unless the object was pushed into his hand? He grabbed it by reflex, a smooth circular surface, like glass, curiously warm against his palm ; then the source of the light was looming up before him, a huge archway covered by something that looked like smoked glass in ebullition. The dim light seemed to come from the other side of the strange barrier.

Riddick had no time for more observations as the invisible hands pulled stronger at him, dragging him into the light, violently pushing at him, drawing him into the gate to elsewhere.

+++

The rectangular room was quite large. Riddick was kneeling on a raised stone dais in the centre of a sunken stone pit some twenty feet deep. A brief glance around showed him several rows of stone benches all around the room, mounting in steep steps. And a group of men in long flowing robes were standing in a circle around the dais and pointing wooden sticks at him. The lack of visible weapons conflicted with the confidence they exuded.

Riddick straightened slowly, a tall, hooded shadow unfolding slowly toward the far ceiling. Standing around six feet tall, his muscular, his intimidating, athletic frame covered by a black robe, he seemed to tower over the assistants. Riddick was standing very still, his shined eyes glowing softly with a whitish blue light, as he got a first real look at the item in his right hand.

A mirror? What the fuck am I supposed to do with a little mirror?

He was about to drop it carelessly to his feet when he found to his own surprise that he had tucked it securely in one of the hidden pockets of his long, black robe. He lifted his hand to his brow in an unconscious gesture of bafflement and his fingers touched the hem of a hood, pushing it back, and discovering his shaven head. He found that even though the light in this room was rather bright it was not as painful as it should be to his light-sensitive eyes.

Something brushed softly against Riddick's back. He whirled around. Behind him on the dais stood an ancient, crumbling stone archway, unsupported by any surrounding wall and hung with a tattered black curtain. The curtain was fluttering very slightly as though it had just been touched, although the air in the room was still and cold and he realised that this must have been what had touched him a moment ago, more, he knew that he had gotten here – wherever 'here' might be – through that archway.

One of the men surrounding the dais in a large circle approached until he stood at the bottom of the small stairway to the dais, his wooden stick still pointed at Riddick's heart. He looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and a certain rangy, loping grace, even though he walked with a slight limp.

"Whoever you may be, I recommend you not to make any fast movements right now. Where is Sirius Black? Kingsley, one movement from him and you stun him!"

A tall, black man with a single gold earring nodded and pointed his own stick at Riddick.

"Bode. Croaker. Care to explain this?"

Two of the remaining three men were still staring open-mouthed at Riddick.

"I… we… don't, that's to say…Bode you told me you were SURE of that incantation… eight years of study, now this…"

Riddick slowly felt his anger taking over. He did not know where he was, but these two guys looked guilty like fuck. They knew something. His instinct told him that his presence here was very much the responsibility of these guys. He had had enough.

"That's it. You people are in trouble. Where the FUCK am I?"

His hand slid inside his robe, reaching for one of his serrated knives. Instead, he found that he had grabbed and was now brandishing a long, black, wooden stick. In the second while he was staring dumbfounded at the strange item, the tall black man named Kingsley acted.

He yelled, "Petrificus Totalus!" and Riddick felt his arms snap to his side. The stick fell from his fingers and he went down as if he had taken a direct hit by a stunner. What the hell? He could not even move his eyelids anymore.

The deep, slow voice added, "Mobilcorpus!" and he was floating in the air Shit, how did he DO that….

And suddenly Riddick knew. He knew how to do this and many other spells. He seemed to remember them, but these were not really his own memories. They were the memories of a man called Sirius. Sirius… Black. The sticks were no sticks, they were magic wands, he was in the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic, and the man who had just hexed him was called Kingsley Shacklebolt and was an Auror.

Riddick wanted to groan, this was worse than torture. The unbidden memories kept coming and coming, flashes of hate and torture for endless years, memories of a dishevelled black-haired kid with bright green eyes like Jack and a lightning shaped scar on his forehead.  
Flashes of growing up in a family that hated him So that's what having a family is like? Looks like I'm not the only one people couldn't stand. A battle for his life in this very same room, on this very same dais. A heavy lidded woman with long dark hair laughing at him, laughing with evil delight as he fell backwards. Not mine… that's not me, its that Sirius bloke who fell.

Cold stone under his back told him that his floating body must have landed on the floor beside the dais. A face swam into his field of vision. Riddick looked helplessly up into the evasive greenish eyes of a red-haired wizard, he's a wizard his new memory supplied.

"Peasegood, he'll have to do. We can't start fishing for Black again; it took months to set up this spell. Just alter his memory to make sure he fits in at Hogwarts and does not do anything silly, then bring him up to my office. We'll talk about your newest blunder later."

"Yes Minister." the red-haired wizard nodded and pointed his wand at Riddick's head.

"Obliviate."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2 – Steam Up

Riddick had done what the ministry Aurors, who had accompanied him to Platform Nine and Three Quarters at King's Cross Station, told him to do, seething all the while. In spite of his confident secondary memories, he had felt very doubtful about pushing against the apparently solid wall between platform nine and platform ten, but then he had just stumbled through.

Children of all ages were standing and chatting everywhere, most of them dragging huge suitcases and cages with owls, cats, toads and rats. A loud gushing noise came from the strange enormous scarlet metal engine with wheels before him. Steam billowed up from its top.

_So that's the Hogwarts Express. And that thing is supposed to take me from here to that wizard school? Just how long will this take? Fucking thing looks so antique that I'd probably get faster around walking!_

His longing for a quicker way to get around triggered a couple new memories.

_Like hell I will! That non-verbal Apparition spell feels too much like falling through that bloody archway again for my comfort and I'll skin the first fucker to suggest I sit on a broomstick. What the hell have I done wrong to find myself in a pre-space-going culture anyway! No skimmers, no skiffs, no way off the bloody planet._

That thought was uncomfortably close to things he really did not want to think about right now. Like where he came from.

Riddick firmly brought his thoughts back under control and to the present.

Regular people – _have to remember to call them 'Muggles'_ - have barely made it beyond their moon and the wand wearing freaks who dragged me here are even worse. Somebody take their magic toys away and they'd all starve, not one honest farmer, butcher or baker in the lot.

Then he remembered that for the time being and until he had fulfilled his mission he was one of the wand wearing freaks and felt depression creeping in again. With a disgusted expression of total distrust Riddick frayed himself a path through curious staring witches, wizards and children and boarded the train.

He entered the first empty compartment he happened upon and dragged the curtains almost shut, so that he had not to watch any longer the happy faces and good-bye waving people outside of the train. He pushed his robe's dark hood over his head, rather liking the sensation of the silky material against his skin. Even if light did not hurt his shined eyes anymore for some reason since he had crossed to this universe, years of habit were hard to shed.

Riddick had no suitcase, but the Ministry staff had taken his measures and told him they would send clothes and everything he needed for his job directly to the school. They had even given him local creds to buy things. Heavy, metallic coins, that he had to carry around in a pouch. Well he supposed that the cred-chip imbedded in his forearm would not be working here and he had no access to intergalactic cred-meters anyway.

He settled down, his back against the window, and concentrated on the activities in the corridor. A slight shudder and rolling underneath told him that the train was moving out of the station. Boys and girls dragging heavy suitcases kept passing before his compartment, they looked frightened when they saw him, probably due to his silver eyes staring back at them out of the dark he supposed. This suited him just fine . He had no want for chattering, snivelling or giggling teenagers around him, if he could help it.

"Is that a Dementor? Look it's got a big black cloak and it's so huge…"

"Don't be moronic, Nigel, that is just a big man. Probably a teacher or some security wizard from the Ministry, guarding the train or something."

At the mention of the unfamiliar term a cold hand had gripped Riddick's throat for a moment. Yet more unwanted memories?

_A "Dementor"?… lemme see... Big. Black hood, prison guard of Azkaban, sucks happiness out of people...Sirius spend years in Azkaban, nearly went mad with them things... hey wait a minute you call me a Dementor again, you little lawnbiter and I'll give you a taste of fucking happiness. All it takes is some Peppermint Schnaps…_

"But he's got these strange eyes,"

"Don't stare Nigel, it's not polite. I think his eyes are way cool, wait I'll take a picture…"

"No Dennis, don't, he looks scary, what if he gets angry …"

A pretty girl with very bushy hair tried to push her suitcase by and snarled at the two younger boys staring at him to get lost. The kid with name 'Denis' put his camera away and with a last look of curiosity and regret continued his way. A tall boy with bright red hair and freckles followed her with a lost puppy look. He threw Riddick a brief glance and talked to another boy behind him.

"You know Harry, I'm really sorry but I have to go to the Prefects' compartment again, why don't you get a seat in here mate, this compartment looks nearly empty? Ginny won't mind if it's a bit in-teee-mate."

He grinned.

"Oh, shut up, Ron!" the dark-haired and green-eyed teenager grinned back and turned to enter Riddick's compartment, closely followed by a laughing younger red-haired and freckled girl. They dragged their suitcases in, wrangled them up over the seats, dropped a cage with a snowy white owl on another empty seat, sat down and got their first real look at the occupant. The two teenagers gulped and looked at the door like they regretted their rushed entry.

_Too late kids, get used to me. Hey, I know that one, that's him! His name is… Harry… Potter. And even though he is the fucking reason for my being here, I must not kill him._

Riddick's mercury eyes fixed themselves on the brilliantly green orbs in front of him.

He said nothing, waited, kept staring. He wanted to see how the kid would handle this little bit of pressure. He handled it rather well, considering. His little girlfriend looked frightened enough to grab at the boy's arm though.

_Smart girl._

"Hello Professor…? My name is Harry Potter."

Riddick did not take the offered hand. His expression did not change and his strange glowing eyes glittered at the teenager, who looked at his hand as if it had done something stupid and let it fall on his knees again.

"Richard B. Riddick. I guess I'm your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

The red-haired girl accompanying Harry relaxed slightly at those words, and, her gaze never leaving Riddick, slid sideways to the windows and reached for the curtains.

Riddick's deep growl stopped her hand in the air, "Keep that closed. You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

_  
_


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3 – It's an Animal Thing

Riddick did not speak again to the kids in his compartment, even when the girl with the bushy hair – Hermione Granger – and the tall red-haired kid with the puppy eyes – Ronald Weasley – joined them. He barely returned their greeting with a nod before going back to his brooding.

In all his life, he had never felt more out of place than on this train, surrounded by chattering and laughing teenagers whose main preoccupations in life were revolving around magic in all its forms. Magic lessons, magic spells, hex, curses, magic sweets and pranks bought at strange places called 'Zonko's' or 'Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes', magic or cursed items (the red-haired boy told the other kids a totally unbelievable tale, where his father had been called this very summer to a Muggle house in order to rescue some old lady from her biting and spitting vacuum cleaner).

Then they started talking about a ballgame played on brooms. Quidditch. Riddick got bored REALLY fast with that. That and the wary looks they kept throwing at him, as if he might yank his shivs out any moment and gut them where they sat. Not that he wasn't tempted a couple of times.

But however strongly he tried to ignore them, his heightened instincts for danger could not help sensing a deep undercurrent fear in all of them. He picked up the unease beneath the over-bright remarks; he noticed the pointedly cheery answers. Everybody here was playing a role in a theatre piece and nobody had handed him his lines. After a couple hours, tired of the looks he was getting, he just faked falling asleep.

The kids kept up their pretence of inane chatter for another half hour. Then some old lady with a tray passed and sold them some sweets and drinks – magical of course.

Then they began to talk in earnest. They whispered about mysterious disappearances, Dark Marks, sightings of Giants and Dementors, they commented new Ministry measures and regulations. They wondered if their school would stay open until the end of term, if there would be another attack from Death Eaters, what the security measures would be. They wondered where their old potion teacher – Snape – had taken a boy called Draco Malfoy.

Most of the time the bushy haired girl brought up new subjects and Riddick was starting to feel grudging admiration and gratitude for her extended knowledge. Each new subject triggered new memories from the Sirius Black guy and by the time the train started to slow down, Riddick was acutely aware of the reason of his presence in this world now.

They had a major magical badass problem with the name Voldemort, and he and that Potter kid were their final solution.

_Lucky them. After going through a Necromonger army in order to off their commander, ghosting a bad wizard sounds like fucking vacation. I'll do it too. If they pay my price._

Something about that thought made him uneasy; he felt he had forgotten some important data linked to the Necromongers. Oh well, he would figure it out. He always did.

He made a show of "waking up", stretching and standing. His head nearly brushed the ceiling.  
_  
Glad to get off the Dwarf train._

When he stepped out off the railway station, a new surprise was waiting for him. About a hundred carriages were waiting for the students along a rough, mud road. Obviously the train had not been the only mechanical pre-antigrav transport he had to take for this school. The carriages were pulled by the most beautiful creatures Riddick had seen yet on this world.

He prowled over to the nearest one and looked it over. The huge, winged horse turned its milky shining eyes to him and pricked its ears forward. Riddick ran a caressing finger along its dragonish face and black neck and hummed to it.

"Mmmmmmm you're a beauty, ain't ya? A bit on the thin side though. There. Good girl."

He noticed that several kids were staring at him as if he had gone mad. Then the black haired kid, Harry, suddenly stood at his side.

"You can see the Thestrals, Professor?"

"Nope. I'm petting my imagination."

Riddick noticed Harry's look and gave him his trademark deadpan expression, enjoying the confusion in the teen's face.

"Sure can. Would be a shame not to look at them."

_What an odd remark to make. They are hard to miss, right?_

The silky feeling of the feverish hot coat under his fingers was incredible. He could go on stroking this beautiful animal forever.

"It seems to like you." Harry looked curiously at the Thestral pushing against Riddick's chest for attention.

"It's an animal thing." Riddick smiled one of his rare smiles. He looked entranced into the Thestral's eyes, he could swear he nearly heard the beast talking to him.

"You know, not everybody can see them," Harry said conversationally.

"No?" Riddick reluctantly stopped petting the winged horse and turned to the teenager.

That explains why the other kids keep staring at us then.

"No. Only people who have seen somebody die can."

Harry turned and started to climb into the carriage.

Riddick stood for a moment without moving, then a loud bark of laughter escaped him. Harry froze mid-step at the sound, as if in pain, then he took a seat in the carriage and waited for his friends to join him.

The Thestral started to lick Riddick's neck where he had cut himself while shaving this morning.

_And they like blood. My kind of animal._


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4 – Scaring Ghosts

"Never seen ye before at t'station, have I? I'm Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts."

Riddick turned around with the strange feeling that he should be breaking out into a large grin another of Sirius' friends and clapping some back and looked up. And looked up some more.

The man before him was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. Long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face. Riddick looked from the beetle black eyes crinkled into a smile to the hand the size of a trash can lid he was thrusting at him. The man smelt of forest, leather, dog and a couple other animals Riddick could not identify, and there was a faint smell of something else.

_Now here is a man who likes a good brew. He seems "nice" enough too. Manage this right and this guy could become a priceless source of information._

Riddick's smile revealed too many white teeth as his smaller hand reached up to the half-giant for a hearty handshake that left him feeling his hand up for broken bones shortly after.

"Richard B. Riddick. I'm the new Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher."

The big guy was beaming down at him. "I see that me Morrigan likes yer face and I say, t'animals can always tell. If a Thestral likes ye, ye must be a good man, yer not at all like that nasty she-gorgon t'Ministry sent us the last time."

Harry Potter's head popped out of the carriage again and he shouted some cheerful greeting to the giant.

"Ye know Professor, if ye likes me Thestrals I'd be happy ter show 'em to you in their natural habitude err habit… well where they live. Ye should not look fer too long into the Morrigan's eyes though, some people say that the female Thestrals have strange mind powers, ye know?"

"Interesting."

Riddick noticed that his eyes were returning of their own will to the Thestral's milky way gaze and he wrenched them away and stepped back. He noticed that the other carriages were starting to move in a file towards the lake and the distant silhouette of a huge castle. Hagrid had noticed as well and gestured to the last empty carriage before him. The night-coloured, winged mare standing before it whinnied softly. He growled a soft excuse at her and climbed in the carriage.

_I could swear she just told me to get the fuck in now or she'll swish her tail all over my face. And she's way too smart for any honest horse. She's smart enough to match a hellhound that one, perhaps even smarter._

"Ye must hurry Professor or ye'll be too late for the sorting ceremony," Hagrid told him.

Riddick noticed that even though the carriage was moving now at an honest trotting speed, Hagrid, who was still walking alongside, was effortlessly keeping up with him.

"It was real nice talking to ye. Just drop by some evening and I'll show yer around the forbidden forest, there is some really interesting creatures in there for one such as yerself."

Before Riddick could reply, the half-giant gave a strange warbling cry and pointed at the distant castle. The Thestral mare reared up a bit before shooting off, throwing Riddick back in his seat with the sudden acceleration.

A cold wind was ripping the cowl from his head. The air smelled of hot lizard, a smell that he was starting to associate with the Thestrals. It was mingled with wafts of moss and leaves and that distinct humid cool smell of water and tang as their wild ride brought them near the lakeside. Riddick made himself comfortable in the by now nearly flying carriage. He idly observed the pair of huge wings folded before him and wondered what they would look like spread wide.

Riddick took his seat on the teacher's table in the Great Hall and tried not to stare at the open sky, now covered in storm clouds over his head. Drawing on Sirius' memories again he knew that it was a magical ceiling, bewitched to look like the sky outside.

The food was plenty and very good and after years of way too many space rations, Riddick appreciated the freshness of it. He had nearly finished his dish of some roasted bird legs with spiced potatoes when he noticed something that nearly stuck the piece of meat in his throat.

A pearly white apparition, very much like the soul he had seen torn out of people by the former Necromonger commander, was floating near the Gryffindor table and staring at him with expressionless eyes. The transparent being was wearing a plumed hat, a tunic with a ruff and an expression of sheer terror.

Riddick looked around him if somebody else had noticed when his gaze met another deceased and empty gaze staring at him; its face contorted in what could only be described as fear. The soft and round looking man with a tonsure and jolly features floated half in, half out of a table and seemed not to notice that two kids had to lean around him to get to their dishes.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, Riddick's head snapped around and yes, there was yet another one. A grim, silent, glowing ghost, covered with bloodstains, its expression torn between fright and longing.

_Bloody hell…_

Some students had noticed now and started pointing at him and whispering among themselves.

Mad laughter broke out over his head. Riddick grit his teeth, preventing himself from jumping free of the table. With a loud "pop!" a little man with wicked dark eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air beside him. He stared from the ghosts to him and back to the ghosts with great interest and obvious delight.

"Oooooooh!" he said, with an evil cackle. "Finally found something more frightening then you! What fun!"

"Peeves! Leave the hall immediately, you know very well that dinnertime is off limits for you, or I may reconsider expelling you from the grounds!"

The severe looking, black-haired witch's eyes shot bolts through her square glasses at the poltergeist.

_What the fuck have I done to your god Imam, that he dumps me in this madhouse. Whatever I've done, I did not deserve this._

Most of the people in the hall had stopped eating by now and were staring at him.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 5 – A New Victim for the Potion Master

"Ooooh Professor McGonagall! Hogwarts has a new scarecrow! Dead and back again, dead and back again! Oooooh the Riddick frightens everybody!"

"Peeves!" The witch took out her wand. Peeves cackled madly and floated backwards. With a rude noise and hand gesture towards the ghosts and another loud "pop!", he disappeared.

The whole hall was silent now and staring toward the teacher's table. Low whispering began as the children put their heads together. All eyes were turned to Riddick.

"I am so sorry for this unacceptable incident, Professor Riddick. Peeves - our resident poltergeist at Hogwarts, Professor - knows very well that he has nothing to do here at meal times! Students – this is Professor Riddick, our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Please give him a hearty welcome."

And to the ghost from Gryffindor house, "Sir Nicholas, may I have a discussion with you in my office in five minutes."

She clapped, trying to start the usual welcoming applause for new teachers. A couple of her colleagues followed her example (Hagrid being one of them) but from the hall came only uneasy looks, and so they stopped soon.

The ghost with the plumed hat seemed to pull himself together. He took his hat off with a shaky glowing hand, bowed low to the teacher's table and to Professor McGonagall and mumbled an apology. His head detached itself from his shoulders and dangled from some pearly tendons and a bit of transparent skin. The teenagers sitting near to him made disgusted exclamations and leaned as far from him as they could get. This seemed to embarrass him further and he straightened in a hurry, grabbed his head with both hands and put it back on his neck. He gestured toward the other ghosts and together they floated through the hall and vanished into a wall.

The short man with prominent eyes, a large belly and an enormous silvery walrus-like moustache sitting next to Riddick leaned over to him.

"How very interesting, how very _intriguing_. Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr Riddick, welcome to Hogwarts. You certainly have made a spectacular entry. Very spectacular, yes. You will have to tell me everything about your strange powers over the ghost world. You will have to tell me all your secrets! Slughorn, Horace is the name. I am the Potions Master of Hogwarts."

Riddick's eyebrows rose as he took in the lavish old-fashioned royal blue waistcoat with gold buttons the man was wearing.

"Potions," repeated Riddick.

"Indeed. Indeed. Love potions, happiness potions, liquid luck and I have to confess some of the more deadly variants too of course. Poisons and antidotes… you know?"

"Poisons." Riddick's deep rough voice was less than welcoming. A sliver of ice slowly ran down his back.

The man pursed soft lips as if he was going to pout.

"My dear Professor, please tell me that you don't share that totally incomprehensible aversion some people have to the brewing of poisons. I have not poisoned somebody for a very long time, you know? Haha. Just my little joke..."

Riddick noticed that the noise in the great hall had returned to a normal conversation level, nobody was paying him any special attention anymore, not counting his irksome neighbour. He pushed his dish away, he was n't hungry anymore. _Poisons_.

"Poisons and antidotes are such a _fascinating_ subject my dear Professor. Why, your predecessor, Professor Snape, could have told you all about this subtle art (he was one of my most gifted students when I was teaching here the first time) … such a shame that he has turned out so badly. What a shame…about Albus..."

The man drew a silken handkerchief out of a pocket in his waistcoat and dabbed at his eyes, reminding Riddick of a very chatty old woman. A very ugly old woman with keen, shrewd, appraising eyes. The man was a typical coward, but far from harmless if pushed into a corner. Riddick felt disgusted by his obvious vanity and pushy, curious manners. He decided right away to keep his distance.

Tuning out the chatty little man, he let his eyes wander around the great hall, admiring the heavy stone architecture, then swept the tables with his piercing gaze. Part of his mind took in the general manners of the kids he would have to teach soon, deciding at once that the students from the tables Slytherin and Gryffindor would give him probably the most trouble for different reasons. The rest of him went back to the obvious trouble his sight had caused in the local undead community.

_Ghosts. Nobody told me anything about meeting any fucking ghosts. The Necro-holy half-dead are bad enough. Now I have to deal with totally dead? And why were all these ghosts so frightened of me? Most time I'd take that as a compliment, but usually people stop being scared of me once they are dead. Besides, these guys know nothing about me or where I come from. Even that limping minister, what's his name...Scrimgeour ... doesn't know. They think I'm just a ...wizard who knew Sirius Black. Wonder what the ghosts have seen in me that I don't know myself is in there? And what the fuck did that Peeves thing mean, dead and back again? I've never been … dead…_

His throat closed at a strong, very strong unbidden memory of a floating bleak existence without feeling, without feeling ANYTHING…just being... somewhere, being just a thought, lingering, refusing to move on! Being an idea of hate and revenge, just existing, slowly turning mad …and before that - burning, ripping, tearing pain in his guts, paralyzing him. The sound of a metallic recipient rolling, clanging on stone. Vaako turning white faced to his wife. Her gleeful voice whispering in his ear _"You keep what you kill..."_

_Poison. The treacherous bitch poisoned me._

Cold sweat ran down his back.

_I ...but that means..._

Dimly he heard his table neighbour's voice happy droning on and clung to that, concentrated on it.

"… will have to present you with another of my most gifted students, takes after his mother Lily, yes, you'll love young Mr. Potter and Professor McGonagall has told us that he has got an outstanding in his OWL in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Ah! there are promising young people at this school, very promising… "

_Harry Potter._ Riddick's mind grabbed at that straw, that name, linking him to the present. He was exceptionally relieved and very grateful to the vain man for his continual chatter now.

Riddick reached for a piece of some reddish cake that had appeared with many other sweets on golden plates on the table, before turning and fully facing his neighbour.

"Fascinating. Do tell me more about Harry Potter, Slughorn."

The man's bald head reddened with pleasure at finally having caught the interesting stranger's attention.

"Oh, I could tell you stories…ah… well for example just last year, he saved his best friends life with a Bezoar! Can you believe it, somebody was trying to _murder_ me…"

_No kidding. You were lucky. Could have been me._

While Riddick listened to Slughorn spinning his tales the dinner was finished, the golden plates and beakers vanished from the tables and the hall emptied. Riddick saw that Harry and his tall red-haired friend and the smart girl with the bushy hair were still sitting at their table and talking quietly in an overly relaxed manner, while glancing repeatedly to him and Slughorn. He suppressed a smile.

_Somebody is interested in me, mmm_m?_ That might come in handy._

His neck started to tingle again, a sure sign that somebody behind or very near was observing him. He inhaled slowly and smelled a distinctive mouldy smell that triggered a rush of hate and bad memories from the Sirius side in him.

Riddick jumped up, his hand shot forward and down under the table and grabbed something hairy. He yanked, and a short, filthy creature with large bat-like ears was struggling and dangling in his grip. He lifted it up by its ear at eye height and stared. A disproportionate wave of _revulsion_ for something this small, ugly and helpless shot up in him.

Slughorn yelped and knocked his glass over.

Riddick's whisper and Harry's astonished shout were simultaneous: "KREACHER!"

The house-elf croaked in a surprisingly deep voice, "Master. _It's my Master_. Please don't hurt old Kreacher, Kreacher has done nothing wrong, Kreacher did not know…"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 6 – House-Elf Pandemonium

_"You."_ Riddick repeated. He felt strange, light-headed. And a strange electric and prickly sensation was running down his arm, as if there was something alien in his body. Something alife. And that something that was … stretching? He looked at his hand and his arm seemed to rise of its own volition. Words hissed out of his mouth that he had not meant to speak.

"Traitor. How dare you spy on me! Did you think I wouldn't recognize your stench anywhere? Do you know what happens to bad house-elves that betray their families, Kreacher?"

Riddick watched astonished as his own hand shook the creature so hard that its ears flapped back and forth and its already bulbous eyes nearly popped from their sockets. Kreacher's mouth opened and closed, but all he managed to get out was a frightened croak with the voice of a panicky bullfrog.

"A house-elf!" exclaimed a delighted but astonished Slughorn. And turning to Riddick again,"But what has a house-elf to do in the Great Hall? Shouldn't it be somewhere hidden and doing some useful work, like, I don't know, cooking in the kitchens or cleaning or whatever house-elves do? It seems you know this creature. Is it yours?"

He watched Riddick with great interest, who in turn was ignoring Slughorn completely, pulled the struggling old elf very close to his face and growled.

"Yes Kreacher is mine, isn't he? What were you doing under my table, Kreacher?"

"Put him down! Err… I mean leave him be please, sir? He's my house-elf. I'm sorry if he bothered you. He is supposed to help in the kitchens, he should not be around here…"

_The hell I'm going to do that! I don't care for people spying on me, and I'm going to know what this… whatever can tell me._

Harry Potter had jogged up to the teachers' table now, and stared with something like mixed hate and pity at the shaking old elf. Kreacher was trembling so hard and his old body felt so bony and fragile in Riddick's hand that he half expected him to make a noise like a castanet . Riddick loosened his iron grip a little.

At Harry Potter's remark, Kreacher seemed to get his voice back. He muttered

"Kreacher is not a filthy half-blood's elf, oh no. The Master is back and Kreacher has to listen to him. Kreacher can smell the Master's pure blood even if Master has a new face."

And with a sort of horrified admiration the elf added, "Kreacher would like to know how the Master got back. He must be very powerful, nobody of the Noble and Most Ancient Hou-"

With growing anger and something like dread, Riddick watched his own hand move like a striking snake, clap over the elf's mouth and muffle him.

_What the fuck? I want to hear what its going to say. It was just going to tell me. I know who you are, you're this Sirius Black guy. Well I got some news for you. This is my body. And I'm not the sharing_ type. _Get. The. Hell. Out._

Riddick struggled for control, he was so angry that he felt the furian powerflare igniting on his chest, the handprint burning under his skin. But still, even now, his head moved yet again and the stranger used his mouth for a whisper into the left bat-like, hairy ear.

"Finish that sentence and I kill you. You will obey Harry and you will not tell anybody what you know or what you guess. None of your tricks. This is a direct order, Kreacher."

Riddick let go of the elf, who fell on all fours and scrambled backwards to Harry Potter's side. Riddick did not care. He had more important things to do. Like getting the control over his own body back. He felt dirty, violated. He had not felt that bad since the first time he was sent to Slam. And he was more than angry. He was furious. The powerful spirit of Sirius Black retreated before that blazing fury as if burned. A lingering thought sat in Riddick's head like a message. _+I don't like this anymore than you do, man. Consider this – if not for me, you wouldn't last one minute against a Death Eater, as your own, not inconsiderable talents, have never been trained.+_

Riddick closed his eyes and grabbed his head with both hands, willing the stranger to leave. _Just leave me the hell alone._ He opened his eyes again and saw Harry Potter frowning down at Kreacher, who was now huddled at his feet and staring at Riddick with a sick mixture of longing, revulsion, admiration and terror.

"Go back to the kitchens, Kreacher. We will talk later."

The elf hesitated and looked at Riddick for confirmation. Grinding his teeth together, Riddick nodded.

_Just great. Come back from the dead, have some fucking ghost hitch a ride and fool around with your head, and pathetic creatures with overlarge, hairy ears will think that you're the best news since the invention of laser-blasters._

With a loud cracking sound Kreacher Disapparated. Or more to the point, most of him did. Whatever the reason – perhaps the elf's advanced age, or his current confused mind… anyhow, the elf's head was now rolling on the floor and it was still staring at Riddick.

A shocked Harry Potter watched the elf head wobbling from side to side before his feet. Horrified he looked up to the remaining two teachers.

"Oh no! He's splinched! I didn't know that house-elves COULD splinch. I mean, they're the only ones I know of that CAN Apparate on the school grounds. What should I do now? Perhaps Madam Pomfrey…the nurse I mean… could…"

Slughorn looked down at the elf. "How very disgusting." He did not sound disgusted at all. He looked fascinated, Riddick thought. To tell the truth, he was fascinated as well and, well, kind of amused too. The hairy head with its bat-like ears and the rolling eyes had something.

Two other loud popping sounds announced the arrivals of yet two more house-elves. One of them had huge, green, tennis ball-sized eyes and a long thin nose like a pencil. The top of his head barely reached to Potter's navel. He was wearing a rust-brown pullover, something that looked like a tea-cosy and several socks on each foot.

The other one was even smaller, obviously female, with enormous brown eyes and a nose like a small tomato. Her fashion sense seemed not quite as awful as the one of her companion though, as she was wearing a neat little pleated skirt and a prim white blouse.

Both of them had scarves around their tiny necks that Riddick only now and drawing on Sirius Black's memory recognized as strips of tea towels stamped with the Hogwarts coat of arms.

"We are really sorry, Harry Potter, sir…" started the green-eyed elf

"…Yes very, very sorry. Good house-elves don't go to the Great H-h-hall. Kreacher has been a bad, bad elf…Dobby and Winky will take him away right now, Harry Potter sir," Tomato nose squeaked.

"Don't worry, Harry Potter, sir," Tennis ball eyes again.

"…We house-elves know what to do when an old elf splinches. He'll be as good as new in no time, and Winky promises that she'll tell him never to bother any great wizard in the Great h

Hall again."

Tomato nose sniffed proudly and gestured to the other elf.

They grabbed one hairy, grey ear of Kreacher's head each and with another loud 'pop!' they Disapparated. This time nothing was left behind, unless you want to count Harry's and Slughorn's gaping mouths and Riddick's grim frown.

_Bloody madhouse._


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 7 – You win them with your Fears

Riddick was sitting comfortably behind the teacher's desk in his new classroom. Once he realised just how many house-elves there were in Hogwarts, he had got a couple of them to redecorate the room, so that it fitted what he had in mind. He was rather eager to see his students' reactions to the new decor. He leaned back until his chair tilted and came to rest on two feet. Riddick's own feet were propped up comfortably on his desk. He let his gaze sweep the room and grinned. _Yep. That's about perfect_.

The sound of many feet stopping outside of the classroom told him that the double-class he would be teaching first today – seventh year students from Gryffindor and Slytherin Houses– were standing on the other side and working up courage to enter. Reluctantly he took his feet off the desk and the chair came down with an audible crash.

"Good grief, you guys are pathetic! One would think that you had never had DA lessons before, now just follow me in and …oh!"

The girl with the bushy hair _Hermione Granger_ had entered the classroom, closely followed by her best friends Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. They were now staring wide-eyed around, before swallowing and taking seats at two connecting tables.

Riddick smirked. _Yep. Perfect_.

Their reactions were echoed in variations by the other youths filing in. The Gryffindors and Slytherins were stared entranced at the walls and ceiling that Riddick had asked the house-elves to paint as black as they could and put up magically enhanced and moving pictures of all the dark creatures he was going to teach the kids about this year.

The different beasts were hidden behind in the black paint and flashing to life only one at a time. The only light in the room came from floating candles near the tables. The illusion was perfect. To the kids it must look like they were going to be attacked out of a perfect darkness by a Sphinx, a vampire, an animated corpse, a Dementor and various other dark creatures, which vanished just as suddenly as they appeared each time somebody tried to get a closer look at them.

Riddick observed the kids for a while more and noticed that once the first surprise had passed, one of them was not looking at the walls anymore. He was looking hard at Riddick and he was smiling a bit as if sharing the joke with him. _Not bad, Harry. Not bad at all_.

Unbidden, pride and love rose in him as Sirius Black looked through his eyes at the boy.

_+Of course. Did you think Harry would fall for such a simple ploy? Harry has faced Lord Voldemort himself on several occasions. Now stop your little mind-games and get on with the lesson…are you sure you don't want me to do the teaching part?+_

_That a real question? You got to be kiddin'_.

Riddick scowled and stood up. He hated it, when he was reminded that he wasn't alone in his body anymore. His eyes fell on the black-haired boy. Apparently his scowl had succeeded where the magically modified classroom had failed … the boy gulped, his certainties gone.

"My name is Riddick, Professor Riddick to you. I'm not really used to this teaching thing, so I guess we'll have to learn that together. But I am actually rather good at recognizing and killing things about to attack me. I have looked up the sort of beasts, curses and things you kids have done the past years in this class. Interesting stuff."

Riddick's deep rough voice echoed slightly in the black room while his silver eyes flashed from student to student.

The class was so silent that the heartbeats and breathing of forty children grew to something nearly material and expanded and retracted in the room like a separate, invisible entity. A Sphinx flashed to life behind Riddick and without turning around, his wand whipped from nowhere to his hand and shot a red beam at it. The picture froze and did not disappear again, nor did another beast appear.

"Magic. Useful, ain't it? You think you can do everything with magic. Well let me tell you something."

Riddick took a step forwards, conscious that his tall silhouette must look rather intimidating when he did that.

A round-faced boy in the first row started to tremble, as he realised that Riddick was now standing right in front of him. Then, his chin stubbornly trust forward. A dark-skinned girl in Gryffindor robes grabbed her neighbour's arm, a fair-headed Slytherin, for comfort. He shoved her away.

"The other side has got it too. You know that, but I'm just not sure if you really KNOW it, if you get my meaning. That's where I come in. To help you make a difference. Because, believe me, magic is just a tool. You don't win fights with tools."

Riddick looked around; satisfied that he had captured their attention.

"You win them with your brains. And you win them with your fears."

This statement seemed so far off for them that at once a low muttering began. Riddick heard the red-haired boy whisper into Hermione's ear, "Constant vigilance," triggering a giggle from her.

He strode down the rows until he came to stand before the boy and leaned down until his eyes were at the same height with the tall red-hair.

"Not bad, Weasley. Yeah, constant vigilance is part of it."

Ron Weasley gulped under the silver stare and slid lower in his seat. His freckles were very visible. Hermione took his arm and squeezed. Harry Potter snorted under his breath. Riddick noticed it all and filed it away for future use. His hand shot forward and he yanked the red-hair out of his chair so fast that Ron forgot to struggle and just hung in his grip in complete surprise. The rest of the class gave the usual various signs of shock like scared exclamations, knocking things over or down, but all of them stayed where they were.

All but three of them.

Riddick looked at the wands of Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and the round-faced boy from the first row pointing at his heart and smiled for the first time.

"Please put him down, Professor. I think Ron got your meaning."

Harry Potter's voice was polite, but firm. His wand did not waver, nor did Hermione and the other boy lower their wands.

Riddick's smile widened. He carefully put the Weasley boy back on his feet.

"Thirty points to Gryffindor. Sit down. Well done, the three of you."

And with a sardonic smile to Ronald Weasley, "At least somebody has learned to be…constantly vigilant."

His mocking gaze rested on Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom while they put their wands away with muttered apologies, and sat. Neville's face was very red and Hermione was biting her lip, obviously confused that she had been about to attack a teacher and then had got a reward for it.

The noise in the class was cut off again by Riddick's deep, mesmerizing voice.

"See. You never know where the attack might come from. Magical beasts, Death Eaters… or family. A friend. Or a teacher. I've heard about the fake Professor Moody teaching here for almost a year. Headmistress McGonagall has told me everything about the sort of dangerous lessons he's given you. Now let's make it so that there can't ever be a repeat of history here. Coming from him it was sheer cheek teaching you about 'constant vigilance'. Got to admire the man. I know, he really was just a Death Eater in disguise, but he still got that one perfectly right. Besides the fact that this bad boy was smart enough to teach here for nearly a year without getting discovered rather proves my point. The man had a goal. He was surrounded by enemies. But his _brains, guts and fear_," Riddick stressed the word, "…made the difference. Take this example. His big mistake was that he hung out around here way too long; there is no beating statistics…"

Riddick noticed the outraged looks around and mumbles of, "He's nuts if he thinks I'm going to take some bloody Death-Eater as example to follow…"

_Come on, kids. USE your brains for a change. That's not what I said. Think!_

Bushy-hair was raising her hand. _Not too scared to ask me a question? Good girl_.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Please, uhm, Professor, what did you mean, winning fights with our fears?"

Instead of answering her question Riddick turned to Harry.

"Potter."

Green eyes widened in response.

"Remember the Tri-Wizard Maze?"

Harry Potter nodded, visibly intrigued at this sudden change of subject.

"Come here and tell us about the Sphinx."

Riddick stepped aside so that the class got a good look at the huge and ferocious looking creature with the lion-like body and the human head on the wall behind him. The sphinx smiled down at them from the wall, revealing very white and sharp looking teeth. Its lion tale swished from side to side.

The boy paled, nodded and slowly came forward.

His tale finished, Riddick awarded him another five points for Gryffindor and sent him back to his place.

"You've heard him. No wand, no spell, nothing but his brains and guts while faced with a dangerous riddle. And fear of having the creature gut him before anybody could get him out of there. And most important – he had the choice to walk away. Most times you have the choice to walk away and not face the battle. Use your brains to tell you if you should take that choice, don't let fear rule you. It's your guts that will keep your fear in check while you think it over. But your fears are still very useful. For now, your fears will keep you ALIVE. Without fear you'd do something real stupid real soon and get killed. Get these three in the right balance, brain, guts and fear and you'll develop a nice strong survival instinct…I think that answers your question, Miss Granger.

"Now everybody - take notes."

Riddick waited until the rustles and various noises had died down and all the youths had quills and parchments before them.

"Alas, we can't study a life sphinx as you did with other dark creatures a couple years ago. Neither the Ministry nor your Headmistress allowed me to bring one here, even if the teacher of Care of Magical Creatures, Professor Hagrid, supported my case with her."

Several youths looked horrified and relieved at their near miss of getting to meet a real life sphinx and somebody muttered, "…Another monster lover, god save us…"

Riddick tilted his head and stopped speaking until uneasy silence filled the class. As if nothing had happened he continued:

"Shame about that. Sphinxes are a wizard-bred species. They got a lion-like body, a human head and their English is better than mine. They love puzzles and riddles. As they are a little playful and like to toy with their meals for some reason your Ministry has placed these splendid creatures in the category of "dangerous beasts." (Fuckin' stupid paper-stallions.) Sphinxes have been used by wizarding folk for centuries to guard treasures, and take it from me; they get downright nasty when that which they guard is threatened. Even I wouldn't provoke a sphinx on guarding duty without good reason.

I think that the Wizard Bank 'Gringotts' uses a couple of them as guards for some of their vaults. Bet that's a nasty surprise for people who want to get to their gold and aren't as good at riddles as Potter here…"

He waited until the uncertain laughs had died down and continued the lesson. The class was furiously taking notes… except for bushy-hair of course.

_Bet she's learned the book by heart before the term started. But I think I still can teach her a few tricks…_

Riddick pointedly ignored her outraged whisper to Harry, "…A little playful? These monsters? Harry he's worse than Hagrid!"

"…Ok, homework for your next lesson: read the chapter on the sphinx again and write down and memorize everything I told you, and I'm gonna test if you have learned to have your wands as ready as Potter, Longbottom and bushy… I mean Mrs Granger here. There is no such thing as security right now. Not at your homes. Not at Hogwarts. Nowhere. I'm gonna rub this lesson in this year and you're gonna learn what I teach. Now get out."

One by one the youths silently filed out of the room again looking both exited about the lesson and relieved that it was over.

Just before closing the door, one of the last kids to file out, a Slytherin boy muttered, "...Or else" before taking off at a run. Riddick could hear horrified giggles coming from a group of Slytherin girls who had followed him out.

He waved his wand at the wall and the sphinx flashed once before disappearing. It was replaced by a scowling white-faced vampire.

He sat back down on his chair and leaned back until the chair tilted. Then he propped his feet back up on his desk.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 8 – Tea for Two and Fur on the Sheets

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months and still Riddick had not managed to gain the trust of Harry Potter or his friends.

_Funny, infiltrating a Necromonger army turns out to be easier than getting a couple of kids to trust me. Guess I'll have to try something new, a more direct approach. Perhaps at the Hogsmeade week-end._

Riddick had learned to respect and even appreciate the company of some of the other teachers. If he felt indifferent to the likes of Professor Sinistra (Astronomy), amused by the tiny Professor Flitwick (Charms and Head of Ravenclaw House) and intrigued by the white-haired centaur called Firenze (Divination); his respect for people like the headmistress, Minerva McGonagall (Transfiguration, Head of Gryffindor House and Acting Headmistress ) or Hagrid was by now a fact. Here were some people he had come to genuinely like.

As suspected, the half giant, Rubeus Hagrid (Care of Magical Creatures), had proved an invaluable source of information about things going on in and outside of the castle. He had kept his promise as well, and had taken Riddick into the Forbidden Forest a couple of times to visit his herd of winged, carnivore horses, the Thestrals. The black mare that Riddick had taken a liking to, had greeted him like an old friend and he had spend a happy hour feeding her before going on a hunt for Ashwinders.

As Hagrid had explained to him, an Ashwinder was a thin grey serpent with glowing red eyes, which comes out of magical fires, and lives long enough to lay fiery hot eggs in some dark and secluded spots. The eggs, while valued as potion ingredients, were very dangerous. If they weren't found and frozen in time, they could set buildings on fire. In a forest they could be a real danger for obvious reasons. Nobody likes a bunch of arsonist snakes in their woods.

Riddick and Hagrid had killed the couple of Ashwinders that had just moved in, but something had already eaten their eggs, leaving only the shells behind. Hagrid had been very excited about that, as he had never heard of a beast before that would willingly eat Ashwinder eggs. The Ashwinders had been included in Riddick's lesson the very next day.

Some other teachers though were definitely starting to get on Riddick's nerves.

One of them was the nurse, Madam Pomfrey.

After one of the Gryffindor kids, Seamus Finnigan, had had a nervous breakdown in one of Riddick's lessons – Riddick had been teaching them how to deal with banshees - and had had to be taken to the infirmary for treatment, the nurse had sought Riddick out, and shouted a stream of invectives at him, before threatening that if something like this happened to HER charges in one of his lessons ever again, she would personally see to it that he was prevented to teach Defence again. She had broken bones (from Quidditch games and training), spell and curse damage to mend every day, and she did not need the added aggravation of having to give Calming potions to students each time they came from his lessons.

Riddick had been mystified. The small round nurse had actually managed to make him feel as if he was some snotty eight year old.. And there was always the distant possibility that he might have to have recourse to her services one day. To make things worse, she had caught him sneezing and, less than an hour later, the nurse had been back, and forced him to swallow a nasty brew in full sight of the other Professors, a brew that she called a "Pepper Up Potion".

The potion had made smoke come out of his ears for hours, and caused every student he met in the castle to snicker behind his back, as they thought that he could not hear them any longer. It had cured his cold as well, but that only added to Riddick's bad mood.

No, Riddick did not like Madam Pomfrey. But Poppy Pomfrey was nothing compared to Sibyll Trelawney, the Divination teacher.

The woman was a _nuisance_. The crazy old bat seemed to have – and Riddick shuddered just thinking about it – _romantic_ feelings for him.

She had managed one day to talk him into visiting her in the North Tower, under the pretence that one of her tea services had been cursed, and that she needed his professional help.

When Riddick had shown up in her stuffy and overheated tower classroom, the perfumed fumes had shut down and clogged his sensitive nose in a matter of seconds.

He had picked his way to her carefully around tables and chintz armchairs, that turned out to be as many obstacles when he wanted to get the hell out only minutes later.

The woman had then insisted on having tea with him, out of an old, white tea service. The porcelain had sprouted pink hearts each time he touched his cup; the sugar bowl kept nudging his hand meaningfully; and as he told her that the tea service did not look dangerous to him and tried to take his leave, the woman had suddenly grabbed his right hand, stared at his palm, and stroked it with a long, pale silver painted fingernail like some elderly mantis antenna stroking its prey. She had then proceeded to tell him with a pseudo-mystical throaty voice, that he had an anonymous female admirer at Hogwarts. A very misunderstood woman, who had been touched by Cupid's own arrow the first time she saw him. A woman who could see his powerful and lost soul and his aura, and who wanted to be there for him, shoulder the burden of his destiny at his side, and more crap like that.

Riddick had stared at the long silver fingernails stroking and digging into his palm and had to fight down a very real urge to ghost her before things could get any uglier, but he had then settled on just getting the hell out of her classroom; a hasty, undignified retreat that felt a lot like a cowardly escape and was hindered by above-mentioned chintz obstacles.

For some reason, Sibyll Trelawney had reminded him of the time where an equally crazy woman, Antonia Chillingsworth, had kept him imprisoned on the spaceship Kubla Khan.

_What is it with crazy women trying to grab me and get me into trouble? Story of my life. _

_Antonia Chillingsworth, collector of death and frozen people; tried to put me in deep Cryosleep and stand me naked on a pedestal in deep cryo. _

_Aereon, the Elemental envoy. She set me up to go after the Necro-commander himself, no less. _

_Lady Vaako, you murderous Necromonger bitch, poisonous snake in the body of a goddess. Ghosted my ass. Still can't believe that I came back from the dead. Glad I did, even if I'm not alone in my head anymore. _

_Sibyll Trelawney, the Seer. Looks harmless enough, but they always do at first. They always do. There is a pattern here of increasing female destructive potential, people wanting to use me, and I'm not liking it one bit. Besides, the old bat is fuckin' ugly. Just my bad luck again. Now if it was that Rosmerta woman from the pub I went to with Hagrid who hit on me, things would be different..._

The fact that Black's consciousness in him had been howling with silent laughter throughout his ordeal had not helped either.

Ever since, Riddick had tried to avoid staying in the same room with Sibyll Trelawney. This proved to be difficult, as she was taking all her meals in the Great Hall now, and had managed more than once to sit on his left side, where she would stay, crouched silent and reproachful, and devouring him with her eyes like some heavily perfumed insect throughout the meal.

Riddick had felt strange all day, restless. He wasn't used to staying at the same place for such a long time, and today's classes had not managed to take the edge off his restlessness. He had been haunted by similar dreams for a couple of weeks by now, and woken up in the morning tired, more tired than a full night of sleep should have any right to leave him. Sometimes his whole body ached as if he had been working out for hours.

When he went to bed today, he fell at once into a by now familiar dream pattern.

_He jumped from his bed and trotted to the door. His huge black paws had some problems opening the door, but he was getting better at it. He pricked his ears forward and backward, listening if Filch, the caretaker, or his ugly cat were nearby. When he couldn't hear anything but the usual creaking noises that the armour standing nearby made as it shifted from one metal-clad foot to the other, he trotted out and followed his nose down the stairs until he came to the Entrance Hall. He had to change back into a man in order to open the great door, but then he found his freedom and bear-sized animal shape again and loped joyfully on huge paws toward the forest. _

_On the edge of the woods, he picked up his giant friend's scent and decided to follow it inside the forest and talk to Hagrid. Who knew? Perhaps Hagrid would take him on another hunt. _

_His matted fur seemed to pick up every dead leaf he touched, but he didn't care. The trail he followed smelled fresher now, and he picked up speed, strong muscles working, paws pounding, his tongue lolling a bit out of his muzzle to get the heat out of his head. _

_Not far now._

_He slowed down and entered the clearing at a calmer pace, when his nose picked up a new scent. Similar to Hagrid, but unlike anything he had smelled before. He could hear the voice of his friend talking to somebody, but the voice answering him was deep like a landslide and it came from something that even looked to the big shaggy black dog like a landslide with legs and arms and a huge ball with a cavern sized hole on top. _

_The hole moved and the landslide-voice grunted, "HAGGAR. GRAWP HUNGRY."_

_+A giant. I can't believe it. Hagrid is keeping a giant in the Forbidden Forest! Minerva must be informed of this at once.+_

_By the time he got back to the castle, he was breathing hard, his sides were heaving and all four legs were trembling from the effort. He was picking his way toward Dumbledore's…no Minerva's office, as a young voice called his name from behind._

_He stopped, turned his head and saw Ronald Weasley's head floating toward him. The boy must be wearing James' old invisibility cloak, which was now Harry's property, as he fondly recalled. The boy had probably been out to get some sweets from the kitchens or something, if he was anything like his chocolate-fond mother at the same age._

"_Sirius? Sirius is that you?"_

_The freckled young face looked first shocked, then uncertain and hopeful._

_+God no. Not that. I can't face that right now. I'm sorry, kid. Please, don't let Harry be with him. This is not the right the time for this. He mustn't see me. He mustn't.+_

_He fled, ignoring the uncertain calls behind him ("Sirius? Is that you? Please, wait!") and the ever-present rage of the strange predator, killer really, whose skin he was forced to wear since he had crossed back through the Veil in the forbidden section of the Ministry of Magic. Only when the OTHER one, the Riddick, was asleep, did Sirius find the freedom to change and roam in his beloved old school the way he had longed to from the first day he/Riddick had been appointed as a teacher here. _

_+Just why is he always so angry? I've never known a man with such a deep, permanent rage before. Or with such control over it. It's as if he has never been touched by love in all his life. Just what is wrong with the man?+_

_Sirius ran all the way up to his room, collapsed on his bed, and fell into a dreamless sleep. _

Sunlight on his face woke Riddick. He stretched, all his muscles protesting the motion. He sat up… and stared at his feet. They were covered with earth and two of his nails were torn. Slowly he held his hands out before his face. They looked just as bad as his feet. They actually looked as bad as the hands of Pomona Sprout, Herbology teacher and Head of Hufflepuff House. Smudged with earth, and with dirt under the nails.

There was something else on the sheets. Riddick picked it up and stared at several long black hairs. No, not hairs, black fur. Like the fur a huge black dog might leave if it were to sleep on his sheets. He looked from his own smooth, caramel and nearly hairless skin to the coarse black hair on the sheets.

_Okay, when did that happen? Dreams don't do that sort of stuff._

_+No, they don't,+ _the hated voice in his head informed him. It sounded a bit embarrassed, guilty really, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Riddick's eyes narrowed.

_Are you saying that I really…_

_+ … turned into a dog? Uhm… Yes. I was actually really happy to discover that I'm still an animagus, even in this body. Even if this new dog form is very… wolf-like. I guess I have you to thank for that. Now I finally know how Remus feels…+ _ Sirius' spirit voice still sounded a bit guilty, but smug as well. Riddick realised that Black really missed talking to the man called Remus Lupin.

Riddick decided to ignore him. He stood up, walked to his tiny bathroom and showered, washing off the grime and dirt he had picked up in the forest, idly wondering what the house-elves would make of his dirty and hairy sheets. He looked at the mirror over the sink. His own face looked back at him, perhaps a shade paler than usual.

"I just turned into a dog," Riddick told wonderingly to his reflection.

"Sure you did, my pretty. Did you have to kiss a princess or a witch to turn back, you big hunk of a man you?" Answered the mirror with a mellow female contralto-voice.

"Big what?" asked Riddick. He could hear Black's barking laughter again.

_Down, boy._ He thought back at him and revelled in the sudden offended silence.

_Good dog._

He looked back into the mirror again, and for the first time really realised all the implications of having to SHARE his body with another soul. This was the second time that Black had just taken command of HIS body, and this time Riddick had not even been aware of it. The implications were obvious. His body had become just a fleshy shell for the strongest soul inside to take over and move about. When he slept, this was obviously Black. The man could do just ANYTHING with HIS body while he slept. Up to and including turning him into a dog!

Saying that this realization did not sit well with Riddick would have been an understatement.

He scowled at his reflection. From this point on he would never be completely certain again who exactly was looking back at him, when he looked into a mirror.

Riddick shuddered. Suddenly his past life, first as a hunted criminal and then as the commander of the biggest galactic army of dangerous nuts, took on a glow of pure nostalgia. There was no going back; but there was nothing to go back to anyway. After all, the one person he ever cared about, a young girl with name of Jack, was dead. And no group of wizards had brought _her_ back. Yet.

_Miss you kid..._

_+If you are qui_te_ finished feeling sorry for yourself – how about getting some breakfast?_+

Despite the harsh words, Sirius' ghost voice was oddly compassionate.

_Don't you fucking pity me. Don't you dare._


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 9 –Butterbeer and Killing Curses

_Impressive._

Riddick was silently following Hagrid through the misty streets of Hogsmeade. Cold November fog was billowing through the small wizard town, distorting the distances to nearby buildings and muffling the sound of their steps. From back, and clothed in his mole-skin coat, the half-giant looked as if part of the cobblestone paved street had grown fur, legs and arms and decided to get up and have a walk about.

His slow stride was eating up the distance and Riddick actually had to hurry to keep up with the man. Riddick liked the fog and the cover it provided, but he knew that their conversation would probably stay more private if it took place in a public and noisy place. Sound travelled strangely in the mist.

_It's time we have a little chat about your giant brother hidden in the forest, man._

"Blimey Professor, I think I just saw Rosmerta opening a new barrel of Firewhiskey. It's nice of you ter keep me some company," Hagrid's voice boomed like a foghorn.

_So much for keeping inconspicuous. _

_...Nice? Me? I've been called lots of things in my time, but nice has never been one of them. _

Rosy golden light and merry noise was spilling out of the windows of "The Three Broomsticks", the local pub.

_No. Too crowded, too many noisy kids around. I want him drunk, that won't work here._

"Ah, Hagrid. I'd rather have a drink at The Hog's Head. I've had about all I can take for today of students."

The big guy looked disappointed. To tell the truth, Riddick was a bit disappointed as well, he liked the way that Rosmerta woman fit snugly in her clothes, but this wasn't the moment to get distracted.

They walked past the dark building of the Post Office; the other side of the street was now nearly hidden in swirling white. They must be past Zonko's Joke Shop by now. They turned right into the small side street off the main street, and yes, there was the wild boar's severed head leaking blood onto the white cloth around it hanging over the entrance to the small inn.

Candlelight, a few dark silhouettes turning to see who had entered and a strong smell of goats greeted their entrance of The Hog's Head. A grumpy-looking old man with long, grey hair and beard was wiping the bar with a dirty rag. The few customers had gone back to their own discussions. Two of them attracted Riddick's attention, by hastily covering their heads with their hoods. The third kept talking on, until one of the other two hushed him with a hissed, "Shhhh Ron. Your hood!"

_Now look who we have here. Potter, Bushy Hair and Constant Vigilance. Interesting._

The old barkeeper shuffled over to take their orders.

"Whiskey, Hagrid? 'N your friend?"

"Yes please," said Hagrid.

"No thanks. Pint of butterbeer for me," said Riddick.

_+Be careful what you say around here as well. Aberforth was an undercover agent for the Order of Phoenix, but he answered only to Dumbledore.+_

_Aberforth who?_

_+Aberforth Dumbledore. The barkeep. He's Albus brother. He and Mundungus may be a bit dodgy, but they get to meet people who wouldn't talk to the lot of us.+_

_I see._

Riddick spend the next hour talking with Hagrid about work, magical creatures and the forest, while ordering more and more Firewhiskey to keep the half-giant's glass full. Hagrid was very happy and relaxed and Riddick's conversationally question went unnoticed just long enough.

"Just how long has Grawp been in the forest then, Hagrid?"

"Not long, hardly over a year, he's a good boy, really and… WHAT?"

Hagrid bellowed and stumbled upright, hitting his head on the ceiling. He stared at Riddick.

Riddick leaned back and sipped his butterbeer, as if nothing was wrong.

"Get a grip, man. He's not exactly hiding, is he? Now sit down and drink up."

The wooden chair groaned warningly as the heavy weight settled once again on it.

"How… what do you know about Grawpie? You must not tell at school. He's not dangerous! He's done nuthing wrong, has he," mumbled Hagrid in worried drunken stupor.

"Indeed?" Riddick's voice was smooth, calm and persuasive. "You're my friend. If you say that he's not dangerous, then I believe you."

Hagrid sagged and knocked down the rest of his glass.

_+What? You can't be serious! Giants are dangerous; he could hurt one of the children that keep sneaking off into the forest. He could hurt Harry!+ _

_Shut up, Black. I know what I'm doing. Hagrid is useful. I don't give a fuck about the stupid kids. Let them fend for themselves. As for Harry, he looks smart enough not to go giant-hunting and get hurt._

Sirius' ghost voice suddenly increased in volume. _+I'm saying this just once. I. will. Not. Let. Innocent. Children. Get. Hurt. Because. Of. You.+ _

_Innocent people get hurt all the time. Trust your big friend. Besides, he didn't look very threatening to ME. The bigger the monster, the bigger the target. Going shiv-happy on his ass would be a nice change to all that stupid small-game hunting. I'm fuckin' bored._

_+You really are a monster.+_

_Flatterer. _

The sound of chairs being drawn back interrupted their conversation. Riddick silently observed the wrapped up figures of the three teenagers leave the pub.

He had just turned back to Hagrid, when the screaming outside started.

Riddick did not bother with the door. He crashed through the window, rolled, stood, and in a fluid motion whipped out his wand.

_+SAVE HARRY SAVE HARRY SAVE HARRY+_

Hermione's screams were nearly drowned out by the bellow in his head.

The girl was lying curled up on her side, a masked female wizard pointing her wand at her and laughing madly, "Crucio! Crucio, little mudblood ha ha ha. Does it hurt?"

Ron Weasley was lying unconscious beside her. Harry Potter was facing two other hooded silhouettes with white masks and drawn wands.

Riddick reacted without thinking and with the swiftness of a striking snake. Three steps and his right fist connected with the temple of Hermione's aggressor. The woman was still folding up, as he was already racing toward the other two men.

_+My turn.+_ The white hot rage he had felt earlier emanating from Sirius was back.

Again the uncanny feeling of being shoved aside in his own body, watching his arm come up, hearing his voice and Harry's voice shout an incantation at the same time.

"Expelliarmus!"

"Protego!"

Harry was being attacked by a Death Eater. The double-spell hit his magical shield so hard, that his wand flew out of his hand. The other man whipped around and snarled, "Avada Kedavra!"

A jet of green light nearly blasted Riddick's left ear off. He felt strange, as if something huge and invisible had just rushed by.

"Silencio!" barked Sirius using Riddick's voice. The Death Eater, a tall man whose hair was escaping his hood in long, black greasy strands, opened and closed his mouth in a silent oath.

"Snivellus! I'll kill you, if it's the last thing I do. And that goes for Bella as well!"

The man's black eyes widened in obvious shock and confusion, then he vanished with a loud cracking sound.

"BLOODY DEATH EATERS ATTACKING? HOW DARE YOU!" Hagrid had finally joined them. He was standing slightly swaying in the doorframe, waving his big fists.

Riddick was only distracted by him for a second, but a second was all the remaining, now wandless Death Eater needed. The disarmed assailant lunged for his wand, which was now lying a close to Ron's left foot, grabbed the arm of the unconscious woman, whose mask had slipped, revealing a gaunt face with heavy lidded, now closed eyes, and disapparated as well.

"Harry, are you okay?"

The teenager stared at him, looking slightly dazed, then his eyes fell on his sobbing friend.

"Hermione! Ron!"

He ran over to them. Riddick felt Black retreat, leaving it up to him to follow. He cracked his head from one side to the other, before following the youngster on a more leisurely pace.

_That the woman who ghosted you? _

_+Yes! And I had her! If not for Hagrid I would have had my revenge on Bella.+_

The ghostly voice was rough with disappointment.

_The way I see it, I had her. And now she has an open bill with me as well. What the hell has she done to Bushy Hair?_

_+Cruciatus curse. Unforgivable curse used by Death Eaters for torture. It causes the victim to suffer almost intolerable pain. Bella loves to keep it up until her victims are driven insane. She used it to drive Frank and Alice insane. The Longbottoms were good people, they didn't deserve that.+_

_Longbottom? That would be that Neville boy's parents, right?_

_+Very dear friends, yes. And members of the Order.+_

Riddick had reached the group standing by the inn's door now. Hermione was huddled against Hagrid, looking impossibly tiny at his side. Harry was kneeling on the cobblestones and trying to wake his red-haired friend up.

Riddick flicked his wand at the boy on the ground.

"Enervate."

Nothing happened. The unconscious boy's skin had an unhealthy green colour.

"I, I, I have t-t-tried that already, P-P-Professor."

Smart Bushy Hair. Of course she had.

"Hmmmm. I guess I'll have to take him to Madam Pomfrey then. Hagrid, take Harry and Hermione back to the castle, I think that's all of Hogsmeade's underground they want to see for today."

He bent down and gathered the limp body in his arms.

"I hate apparating."

"Professor Riddick?" Harry stepped up to him.

"Yeah?"

Green eyes stared intently in his own, cloudy with conflicting emotions.

"Thank you for saving our lives."

"Just doing my job. I really hate apparating." Riddick vanished.

Harry turned to Hermione and Hagrid. "He called Snape "Snivellus" and Bellatrix Lestrange "Bella." And Ron told me that he saw a black dog in the castle!"

His eyes shone with hope and confusion.

"I know it sounds crazy, but do you think Professor Riddick could be… Sirius?"

"Harry! Did you listen to what you just said? Sirius is dead, Harry, we saw him die. Professor Riddick is from the Ministry; perhaps he's Auror trained or something. Of course he knows about Snape and Bellatrix. Perhaps he's talked to Professor McGonagall?"

Hermione looked worried.

But Hagrid shook his head. "I dunno Hermione, I think that Harry is right, there is somethin' strange about that man.

The Thestrals like him, even me Morrigan and she's never liked anybody, she's a nasty mare, that one. Then that business with the Hogwarts ghosts being frightened of 'm and ter tell the truth, the man is a born hunter, never seen the like before. Snatching Ashwinders out of their nest with his bare hands, just like that, and crushin' their skulls. Ye've seen him move, nobody moves that fast. But he's not Sirius, can't be, what with Sirius being dead."

"Hermione! Hagrid! He called Snape Snivellus! I don't know, perhaps Sirius has taken a polyjuice potion to look like the real Professor Riddick. I HAVE to know! I'll write to Remus and tell him, you know he'd want to know."

Hermione's eyes nearly crossed as she tried to follow Harry's excited gestures. Oblivious and overwrought, Harry babbled on:

"...and I'll ask Kreacher to spy on him. Kreacher has behaved very strangely as well since that business in the Great Hall. He actually obeys me now most times, but I have a bad feeling about that too. He won't even insult me anymore! He's stopped begging for getting his head cut off and put up on a wall as well, and sometimes he won't come when I call him. Perhaps he's not really MY elf anymore? Perhaps…house-elves have to come when their owner call them, no?"

Hermione looked thoughtful. "That really is strange. But you know, Kreacher is old and he went funny in his head a long time ago in that awful house. I don't think that Professor Riddick takes a polyjuice potion, we would have noticed, just think about all the double lessons with the Slytherins we've had. Besides, he would have transformed back after an hour if he didn't drink some more potion to keep the transfiguration going, and I've never seen him drink anything in his lessons. Let me know what Professor Lupin answers please Harry."

"Will you stop discussing things like that inna street! Have ye no sense of discree… of discraa…how ter keep silent? Professor Riddick said ter take ye back ter the castle an' that's what we're going to do now!"

They left. When their voices had been swallowed up by the fog, the grumpy-looking old man with a mane of long, grey hair and a matching beard quietly closed the door to his pub. Then he flicked his wand at the broken window. "Reparo." Candlelight sparkled on his glasses.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 10 – The Old Lion's Plan

Rain. It was going to rain again. The pain in his stiff knee was a dead give-away.

For the hundredth time, Rufus Scrimgeour reflected bitterly that his knee had never been the same again after that last tendon injury. St. Mungo's finest had told him that repeated tendon ruptures could leave "slight" after-effects. Regrets, and put your leg up, be a nice cripple, give it a rest, put ice on it. Take it easy; leave the leg-work to younger Aurors. Delegate.

Take it easy? Even when he had made Head Auror, he had never been one to shy away from action, and no stiff leg would make him hide in his office now that he was Minister of Magic.

He was Minister of Magic. What a hoot.

Just what exactly had he accomplished since he got the job? Voldemort was still at large. Ok, so he had realised a nice catch of Death Eaters after the battle in the Department of Mysteries, but it was getting increasingly difficult to keep them locked up, what with the Dementors having sided with the enemy.

And, the efforts of the Daily Prophet notwithstanding, all the security measures he had to impose on the Wizarding Community did not exactly make him popular either. What a shame that his efforts of winning the young Potter kid over for the Ministry had been in vain, no, worse than vain. Potter obviously had been completely brain-washed by the now deceased Headmaster of Britain's only wizarding school, Albus Dumbledore. If only his predecessor in the Ministry, Cornelius Fudge, had not been such a bloody fool and listened to the old chap earlier.

Dumbledore had been perhaps off his rocker about some things, but he had got one thing dead right – in the face of evil, unity prevails. Rufus had learned that in his years as an Auror. When you go into battle, you need people you could trust to have your back.

He put up his elbows on the heavy oak desk before him and let his face rest for a moment in his hands, strong fingers pulling tiredly on the long, strands of grey hair. Too much hair actually, he was thinking about getting his mane cut off.

_I do miss the old fool. What a spirit. What power. What a waste._

A knock on the door shocked him out of his brooding. He stood up tiredly and messed his hair up some more by trying to flatten it. Another knock.

"Come in, come in!" He knew, he sounded irritated.

"Ah, Croaker, I was expecting you. Have a seat."

He took off his wire-rimmed spectacles and started cleaning them, while watching the man with keen yellowish eyes.

"This is about your last, failed experiment again? Your report was somewhat hazy. Do secure the room please."

The young wizard in front of him scowled. He muttered an incantation and waved his wand in at the door and the fireplace before facing Scrimgeour again.

"With all due respect, Minister, we have explained to you that the spell did work. There is nothing wrong with the spell - we have gone over it again and again. We don't know why this Riddick person materialized instead of Black-"

"Figures."

"…But after our last studies, even if another person was brought back with this particular spell, that person should have the essence, memories and spirit of Sirius Back imprinted on him-"

"What?" Scrimgeour's eyes widened. "Are you saying that Riddick is actually Black walking around in another skin? Not just a couple of memories you added to smooth his integration at Hogwarts?"

With his furrowed brows, yellow flashing eyes and the mane of hair, the Minister looked more than ever like an old lion. Not a happy lion either.

"Yes, but- " Croaker was getting a shade paler.

Scrimgeour's sudden grin hit him like a slap in the face. "I forgive you. This is the best news I've had in months."

He leaned back in his comfortable armchair and crossed his arms, feeling good. Great even. Even the screaming pain in his knee had lessened.

"This is priceless. Are you telling me that we actually sent the REAL Sirius Black as a bodyguard and spy to his own godson? Not just some stranger with a couple of modified memories? Who better to discover whatever it is that young Potter and Dumbledore have been holding out on me? The man is brilliant. Remember, he was the first wizard who ever escaped from Azkaban! And nobody will recognize him. Even You-Know-Who does not know this face."

"Yes Minister… but Minister, what about Riddick?"

"What about him?" The old lion was getting impatient again with the young Unspeakable.

Croaker shrank under that look. He wanted to point out how hard it must be for Riddick to get dragged back into life, only to share his body with another man's soul. He wanted to add that they knew nearly nothing about Riddick, other than that he seemed strange and violent. He wanted to ask if it was a good idea under these conditions to let him teach children. Besides, why should anybody at Hogwarts trust him after that Umbridge disaster? Much less Harry Potter.

Once again, their new, ruthless Minister seemed strangely blind for what he did not want to see.

He answered, "About that… promise you gave him."

Scrimgeour waved his hand impatiently. "That's not important. We'll work out some compensation for him later. He can't really expect us to bring back some dead girlfriend of his, that we know nothing about, now can he? I think I'll have an ad put in the next Prophet, about Black's good name being cleared or something. Long-term thinking, you know?"

For one crazy moment, Croaker wondered if the job of Minister of Magic itself was cursed to produce blind and stubborn leaders. It reminded him of that popular joke about the curse of the Mayflies, the recurring phenomena of one-year-only Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers at Hogwarts.

And 'long-term-thinking'? He remembered the menacing silver eyes staring into his own, the deep rough voice growling, "That's it. You people are in trouble." A perfect summing-up of the situation. The Department of Mysteries' proudest achievement was on the loose and nobody could tell what would happen. 'Long-term thinking', indeed.

Or something.

"Goodbye Croaker."

"Goodbye Minister."

With the young Unspeakable gone, the ache in his knee increased again. Something in the man's demeanour had made him uneasy.

His plan was perfect, no? Black/Riddick gets Harry Potter to trust him and tell him about Dumbledore's plan to destroy He Who Must Not Be Named. Once he knows, Black reports to him, Scrimgeour, at the Ministry, the strong hypno-spell the Obliviators have put in his head would make sure of that. Black/Riddick tells his tale, apparates back to the school and forgets about his mission. The Ministry uses Dumbledore's secret weapon or whatever and catches Lord... Thingie..Universal rejoicing, re-election guaranteed, some decorations and rewards to select people.Yes, the plan was perfect.

… So why did he have a bad feeling about it all of a sudden?


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 11 – A Letter with Consequences

Riddick was leaning in the doorway to the Hospital Wing and watching the school nurse, Poppy Pomfrey, tend to the pale, red-haired boy on the bed.

_Efficient. I like that. Looks like that magic stuff has its ups too. Kid is already looking better. Could nearly make me like that woman._

He turned to leave. Madam Pomfrey's severe voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Professor Riddick! Where are you going? You must tell me exactly what happened to Mr Weasley!"

_Or not._

He answered without slowing his stride.

"Bellatrix Lestrange. Cruciatus spell and some poison. That bad girl was laughing rather a lot, while she straddled him. Perhaps her spittle poisoned him, how should I know? Ask Slughorn, it's his specialty. I never use poison."

Poppy Pomfrey stared at his receding large back.

"Lestrange? Isn't she one of these Death-Eaters that escaped Azkaban? The woman who murdered Black at the Ministry? I hope that you arrested her, Professor?"

Riddick's steps faltered a second before resuming their usual prowl. When his distant deep voice reached the Nurse, she had already turned back to her patient.

"No. Got spirited away. But she crosses me again, she's gonna get what she's diggin' for."

_Dear Remus,_

Harry stared blankly at the bit of parchment before him. How do you tell a werewolf that you suspect that his best friend has somehow come back from the dead as a ghost or something and was now possessing a teacher? It had taken long enough for Harry himself to give in and face his suspicions. And he still had no proof. After all Riddick had never tried to contact Harry, and Sirius would certainly have done that… or would he?

Anyway, this time things had gone too far to keep his suspicions to himself. Harry needed to talk to somebody about this and Lupin was him.

But how? If he just wrote, "Dear Remus, I think my new Defence teacher is possessed by Sirius, but he doesn't seem to recognize me anymore," he could just imagine how Lupin would react.

He would probably sic Madam Pomfrey on him or think he, Harry, had gone mad with grief and was making things up. And he would be worried.

Hell, Harry himself was worried.

If Ron and Hermione weren't there and didn't share his suspicions he would be even more worried.

Harry sighed, picked the quill up and dipped it in the inkwell. He would just tell him what had happened and let him make up his own mind. Yeah, that would do.

_I have talked with Hermione and Ron and they both agree with me that there is something going on here that you need to know about. _

_At the start of term, Kreacher showed up in the Great Hall right after the Sorting was over, though I hadn't told him to. He was spying on our new DADA teacher, Professor Riddick…_

Harry paused, put the quill down and sighed. This was going to be a long letter. He should have asked Hermione to help him out and write it. He shrugged, picked the quill up again and resumed his writing. For a long time, the only noise to be heard in the Gryffindor common room was the dry scratching sound of his quill on parchment.

_Today Hermione, Ron and I were attacked by Death Eaters at Hogsmeade. Professor Riddick was there and something just as strange happened. _

_He saved our lives today, so I guess he's not dark or anything, but he probably works for the Ministry. Can you check with Mr Weasley? _

_I've never seen somebody move that fast. It was amazing the way he took down all these Death Eaters. Do you know if he's an Auror? _

_I recognized some of the Death Eaters. Snape was there and Dolohov and Bellatrix Lestrange. It looks like Voldemort is tired of trying to take me down by himself because they tried to kill me, not kidnap me._

_Ron was hit by a Cruciatus curse from Bellatrix Lestrange as he tried to help Hermione. _

Harry had to put the quill down again. His hand was shaking too badly.

He stood up, walked to the fire and stared blindly into the flames. The Gryffindor common room was dark and empty at this time of the night; all his classmates were in their beds, sleeping. Harry couldn't sleep. Not with his best mate poisoned and in the Hospital Wing. If Madam Pomfrey hadn't thrown him out, he would be sitting at Ron's bed now and checking on him. So would Hermione, if Madam Pomfrey had not forced a draught of sleeping potion down her throat.

He remembered the expression in Hermione's eyes when Madam Pomfrey told them about the poison. It wasn't the first time that he had seen it either. He had seen that same fierce anger before, as he was trudging along her side through the Forbidden Forest, Umbridge at their heels. No, Hermione would not rest until she got even with Bellatrix Lestrange and Harry would be more than happy to help her.

_Don't let me down, mate. Madam Pomfrey says you'll be ok. She'd better be right._

A burning log collapsed into two halves and a cloud of sparks before him and the crackle snapped him out of his thoughts. The letter. He better finish it now.

Harry returned to the table, sat down and scratched out the last few lines, which were illegible due to his shaking hand. The tiny sound of his quill scratching over the parchment and his own breathing suddenly seemed overly loud to him. And the room was somehow colder too. Madam Pomfrey had said Ron would be ok. But Madam Pomfrey had never been hit by the Cruciatus. He, Harry, knew what it was like. Voldemort had done it to him in his fourth year.

…_Ron was hit by the Cruciatus curse a couple of times when he tried to help Hermione. And he has been poisoned somehow. I couldn't get to him; I had to avoid Snape's killing curses. It was Bellatrix Lestrange! And it was Professor Riddick who saved him. Ron is in the Hospital Wing now. Madam Pomfrey says that he has to spend the night but that he should be okay, and she should know. Perhaps its better if you don't tell his mum right away or she'll have a fit…Hermione was stunned but she's okay too, she's sleeping right now._

_I don't know how to tell you this Remus and please believe me, I'm not crazy, but I really think that you should talk to Professor Riddick, and you don't want to be alone when you do. You'll need some people with you, because he will refuse to talk to you. He talks to nobody when he isn't teaching. Except perhaps Hagrid. _

_Kreacher called him Master and today Professor Riddick recognized the Death Eater attacking me as well. He knew that it was Snape and he recognized Bellatrix as well. Remus, he called them "Snivellus" and "Bella" and he threatened that he would kill them! _

_Something else, about that fight today - Professor Riddick was really scary, I mean really scary. Not quiet Voldemort-scary, but close. Kind of like Moody when Tonks told him about his Muggle neighbour's house getting blown up by Death Eaters this summer with that young Muggle single mum and her baby still in it. _

_When the Death Eaters attacked us, he was still inside the Hog's Head and talking to somebody. He must have heard the sounds of the fight, because he jumped straight through the window of the pub, just so that he could get out faster. _

_Have you ever seen somebody do something like that? _

_And Ron told me the other day that he has seen a big dog in the castle._

_Whoever or whatever Professor Riddick may be, I think he is hiding something really important about himself and he is dangerous._

There. That was clear enough. He felt a little bad that he had not told Lupin that Professor Riddick had been talking to Hagrid in the pub, but Lupin didn't know about Grawp and it was up to Hagrid whom he told about his giant half-brother. It was bad enough that Professor Riddick apparently had found out about the giant in the forest, but at least he didn't seem to mind. Anyway, he, Harry, would not break his promise to Hagrid and tell somebody else. Not even Lupin.

…_by the way thank you again for that neat Confundus charm for our letters, it works great, so far nobody in my dorm has even noticed when I'm writing one, they always think I'm doing homework._

_Please say hello to all the Weasleys, Tonks and Moody and send me an answer with Hedwig. She can stay with you for a couple of days if necessary._

_Harry _

_PS: Don't worry about me, I'm not hurt or anything._

Harry sanded the parchment so that the ink dried faster, and rolled it into a tight roll. He would take it to the Owlery at the top of the West Tower before breakfast. He yawned. It seemed that writing to Lupin had relaxed him enough, so that perhaps he could catch a couple of hours sleep yet.

Less than ten hours later, Riddick came out of a strange haze to find himself sitting on a flying broomstick.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 12 – Questions Asked and Answers Questioned

Riddick's fingers were whitening from his death grip on the broomstick. A freezing night-wind had decided to transform him into a blow-up doll; the icy air rushed into his sleeves, ballooning his clothes and freezing his muscles.

From time to time fast drifting clouds covered the nearly full moon above his head, and he could not see the unfamiliar constellations anymore. Still, the light was more than sufficient for his altered eyes, even if he could hear the three people flying around him curse each time that happened.

After his first glance down, first at his own legs dangling on the narrow and above all fragile broomstick, then at the tiny houses, fields and cars far, far, below, he had decided not to look down again. Ever. He had no problems with heights, but he did NOT trust the unnatural thing he was sitting on with his weight. Besides it was fucking uncomfortable. No man should ever have to sit on something like that.

One question was foremost on his mind – how the FUCK had this happened?

The last thing he remembered was having a couple of drinks of Fire-whiskey with Hagrid after dinner. And the next thing he remembered was falling off the broom he was riding now and dangling one-handed from it at _skimmer_ flying height for a several long minutes before he could work up enough momentum to flip himself back up again. Each time he tried to remember what happened between the two moments, his mind started to phase out again.

A familiar voice in his head spoke up, startling him into nearly falling off the broom again.

_+Listen to me. We are in real trouble here.+ _

_First you're a voice in my head, then you're a dog, and now you're a fuckin' psychic._

He glanced at the people flying around him. _Who are these assholes? Must be a special kind of desperate dicks to pull this crap on me._

_+No need for name calling, Riddick. They are, were, friends. I think I won't have time enough to explain it all to you, but this is the situation right now – you are on your way to my old family house, number twelve Grimmauld Place with Tonks, Mad-Eye and Kingsley Shacklebolt._

_You met them earlier at Hagrid's hut, they wanted you to come with them and talk. You felt threatened and refused to go with them, and then you attacked them. Kingsley did a memory charm on you just in time – he is really good with them -and I suspect Mad-Eye to have placed you under something nearly as strong as the Imperius curse. I had to burrow far into your subconscious so that the spells didn't touch me as well, and I couldn't help you without giving my presence away._

_Then they put you on that broom and now we are flying to London, where we will meet Remus as well. You can relax for now, I can manage the flying part until we get there, as you have never flown a broom before. But we have to figure out what we'll do once we get there, and we have to figure it out fast._+

Riddick slit his eyes against the wind as the wizard flying before him shifted and changed direction.

_How's that a problem? Fuckers meddled with my head. They fix it, and then they die. We go back by any means but broomstick and carry on with our mission. You know what's at stake for me._

Riddick could feel Black's instant angry uproar burning in his head but he did not care. He meant every word he just said. How dare these guys fuck with his head? What if they had altered a memory of Jack? They had to pay for this.

_+You will not kill my best friends, you fucking monster! I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!+_

_Try me. Nobody fucks with my head and lives._

His broom suddenly lurched downwards as Black's concentration snapped. He felt the other man's fury as if it was his own.

_Hey watch it, we are a bit high for that kind of stunt!_

A cluster of lights before them showed him that their destination must be near.

_+Riddick.+_

He could feel Black fighting down his anger. He did not reply.

_+Riddick listen. I know that my friends have offended you by taking your choice away like that. Remember, these people are warriors in a battle against evil, they have fought Voldemort's minions for years. They must have heard something about you that has alerted them, they must think you are somehow a danger to Harry. They just want to talk to you and get some honest answers. I'm sure that they don't think that you are a Death Eater or they would never take you to the Headquarters of the Order of Phoenix. Alastor would rather kill you. These are good men and my friends and I trust them with my life. I would trust Remus with anybody's life…_+

Sirius actually gave a nervous chuckle and Riddick reluctantly consented to listen a bit more to him. Friends. Friends were a weakness and still… Riddick had never had many friends. Imam. Jack. Perhaps Caroline. The way Black talked about his friends touched something in him, something better left alone.

_+…Except on full moon when he hasn't had his Wolfsbane potion of course. Listen to them before you try anything, ok? And know that I will never let you harm my last best friend alive. Nor would I let anybody harm Harry. I'd rather stop our heart._+

Yeah, he remembered that feeling. He had felt like that once, too. He remembered the drive, the purpose that feeling gave to your life. And then Jack had died in his arms.

_I'm listening._

For some reason Black's relief was kind of flattering. Riddick had come to respect the man. He was nearly as reckless and single-minded as himself. And the man had proven his stubbornness and patience with his evasion from the Wizard Prison, Azkaban. He could relate to that and everything it implied too.

The scarred wizard flying to his right, the one with the flashy electric-blue eye, shouted something and pointed downwards. The ever-present wind distorted the sound, preventing him from hearing actual words.

_+I suggest we go with them peacefully. If they ask the right questions, I advise that we answer with the truth. It's not easy for me either, you know? How would you feel, if you had to show yourself like that to your best friends? They probably won't even believe me without proof. And remember what I told you about Remus. This close to full moon he is on edge and has splitting headaches. Try not to add to them, will you._+

He remembered little Jackie's luminous green eyes looking at him. Always ends badly when you let someone get too close.

_The threat comes off when my memory comes back. They try something like that again, they deal with consequences. Even you won't stop me then._

_+You'll get your memory back.+_

They landed in a dark silent street. The area looked derelict. The house they were facing was dirty and unkempt with grimy windows. A path lead from the street to the battered, black-painted door with a silver knocker in the shape of a twisted serpent. There didn't seem to be a keyhole or a letterbox.

_+Home, sweet home.+_ Sirius' voice was bitter.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 13 – Moony

"Read this." Alastor Moody's rough voice matched his looks. His magical eye was rolling madly in all directions.

He thrust a dirty bit of parchment in Riddick's left hand. Riddick looked down and could just decipher "The Headquarter of the Order of Phoenix is situated number twelve Grimmauld Place" before the parchment was ripped out of his fingers again.

_Something I should know? _

_+Fidelius Charm, I guess they have a new Secret Keeper. Of course we don't need one as this is my house.+ _volunteered Sirius.

_Gotcha._

Riddick did not volunteer that he had seen the house just fine before reading this. Instead he nodded and started forward, ignoring the wands that the young pink haired witch _+Her name is Nymphadora Tonks but she only wants to be called Tonks + _and the black wizard with the earring _+That's Kingsley. Kingsley Shacklebolt_+ were still pointing at him.

_I don't give a fuck about their names, just lets get this over with._

The young witch knocked at the door, and a man opened at once. Obviously they were expected.

_+Remus!+ _

Riddick froze. He could feel the rush of affection, no, love emanating from Black at the sight of the slim, tall man at the door. The feeling was so strong, that it smothered his lingering anger and replaced it with curiosity. Remus Lupin's hair was a greying light brown and deep lines of sorrow made him look older than he probably was.

Riddick met the man's guarded, hazel gaze and wasn't overly impressed. The man's wizard robes were shabby, he looked sickly and tired and not at all the way Riddick would have pictured a werewolf. He looked about as dangerous as a wet rabbit.

_+Appearances can be deceiving.+ _

The man stepped back. He was not smiling and no recognition sparked in his brown eyes as he looked at Riddick, "I have made some tea, and there's some Firewhiskey for you as well, Alastor. I suggest we talk in the kitchen. If you please," Lupin's hoarse, soft voice sounded oddly lifeless as he ushered them in, but his narrow shoulders were tense.

_+Oh Moony.+ _

_Moony? _

_+What better nickname for a werewolf?+ _

Riddick ignored Sirius' sorrowful concern for his friend and looked around curiously.

The hall of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was narrow passage with peeling wallpaper and an old threadbare carpet. Gas lamps and a serpent-shaped, cobwebby candelabra gave off a dim light. The walls sported a number of age-blackened portraits and a section of the hall was curtained off with old moth-eaten, mouldy curtains.

Riddick's eyebrows rose at the sight of an umbrella stand made from a troll's leg.

_+Sorry. I had thrown that thing out a couple of times, but Kreacher kept putting it back. After a while I just did not bother anymore and DON'T TOUCH THOSE+_

"Oh no, DON'T!"

"Stay clear of those!"

"You don't want to know what's in there, laddie,"

Sirius' mind-shout was simultaneous with the hissed admonitions from Tonks, Shacklebolt and Alastor Moody.

Riddick had taken a curious step forward and was reaching for the mouldy curtains. His eyebrows rose at the agitated silent pantomime of the people around him. He lifted both hands in amused but silent surrender, before following Lupin down the creaking old wooden stairs to the basement and kitchen.

With Riddick's gesture, the tension had gone out of Remus' shoulders, but the lines around his mouth were even more visible than before.

_What was that all about?_

_+There is a portrait of my dear old mother hanging behind those curtains. Believe me, you don't want to wake the mad old bitch if you can avoid it.+_

The kitchen turned out to be quiet large, with rough-hewn walls, a giant fireplace, and a large wooden table with lots of chairs. A steaming pot of tea stood on the table with several mugs, sugar and an old battered looking silver milk jug.

Riddick took a seat at the head of the table without waiting for an invitation. He poured himself a cup of tea, put his feet up on a chair facing the fireplace, tilted his head in expectation and looked at the four people standing before him. Moody, Tonks and Shacklebolt sat down at once and got cups of their own. They watched him in silence as he added three sugar lumps to his tea and gulped the scalding liquid down without stirring.

"Padfoot?"

Riddick sharply looked up.

Remus Lupin had gone deathly pale. The tension rising from his arms and neck was nearly visible as he stared wide-eyed from Riddick's cup to his chair by the fireplace and his propped up feet before finally meeting his eyes.

Slowly Riddick put his cup down on the table. In a wave of unspoken emotions Sirius Black rose up in him, shoved him back, and took his place. Unfamiliar moisture rose in his eyes, threatened to spill over.

"Shit, Moony. You look like hell warmed over."

Tonks' cup shattered on the table, spilling hot tea everywhere.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 14 – Finding Padfoot

Why was the hall always this cold? Despite his accelerated heartbeat, Remus was shivering under his thin, shabby cloak.

_I'm doing it again. That's not Sirius. Sirius is… gone. I saw him go. I must stop this, this is what, the third time this week?_

Remus Lupin watched the tall, bald stranger hold up his hands in a curiously soothing gesture and step back from the mouldy curtains that covered Mrs Black's portrait.

_It's the eyes. That must be it. The man's eyes, that strange colour, like molten lead, and their expression… empty, black pits, eyes, not unlike Sirius' eyes when I saw him first in the Shrieking Shack, the day he tried to kill Peter. I must stop that, stop seeing Sirius everywhere or Arthur will sic Molly on me again._

He felt the irrational spark of hope he had nurtured since he had read Harry's letter die.

"I have made some tea and there is some Firewhiskey for you as well, Alastor. I suggest we talk in the kitchen. If you please."

Remus' shoulders sagged as he turned and simply walked down the stairway to the big old kitchen leaving it up to his friends and the tall stranger to follow.

He could feel their gazes on his back. Tonks would be worried again. Sweet Tonks, always trying to cheer him up, her soft doe-eyes on him, watching him, trying to get him to "talk about it". As if that would help. Kingsley's eyes, always watching too, but discreet. A good man who respected people and their grief and did not intrude and prod, prod, prod like young idealistic Tonks. Kingsley had lost enough friends to know when not to prod. Thank God, at least Mad-Eye would be too busy watching the man walking behind him to pay attention.

He took a few steps into the kitchen, turned and nearly jumped with surprise.

The stranger's steps, (Riddick?) were so silent that he had not noticed how closely he walked behind him. There was something in the way he walked, no, not walked, prowled. It was painful to watch him, watch him walk like that, walk to the chimney, sit down, prop up his feet.

_My god. His feet. Up. There. Just where…and now, what is he doing, he takes Sirius' cup, SIRIUS' CUP, why did I put that on the table, I was going to throw it away, three sugars, he does not stir the tea. NO, NO, NO, it can't be, he even drinks like Sirius, how many times have I told him not to gulp like that, the tea is hot, he'll burn his tongue again, how many times-_

"Padfoot?"

Remus watched the man's head jerk up and around, the gesture painfully familiar, his alien dead eyes rising to him, watched him set the cup down in slow motion on the table. Saw the concern brighten those empty eyes, bring them to life

"Shit, Moony. You look like hell warmed over."

Such a deep voice. Unfamiliar but the words, the words are familiar. Too familiar. He had heard them before, when was it their third year, after a full moon, that awful day, the day they had found out. Somehow he had got out of the Shack, woken up on the grounds, his friends standing over him. He remembered James' exclamation "Sirius, your cloak, we have to cover him, damnit he's naked, and hurt, looks like something bit him" and Sirius, Sirius looking at him with that same expression, he knew, yes Sirius knew he bit himself, Sirius telling him that he looked like hell warmed over before covering him with his own cloak.

He could not move, he heard a cup shatter on the floor, heard Tonks shocked curse, nothing mattered, he could not breathe. His mind was empty, he wanted to disappear, he wanted to cry. He was finally losing it. Hallucinations. He wondered if somebody, anybody would come and visit him at St Mungo's.

Paralyzed, he watched the man stand up and walk over to him. Watched those big, toffee coloured hands rise, felt the grip on his arms. Felt himself engulfed in a bear hug, felt the shaky breath shudder through the unfamiliar, wide chest. Wrong. The man smelled so wrong.

"It's ok. I've got you. Moony. I'm really here."

The voice too was wrong but the accent, that familiar aristocratic accent. He heard his own voice, a broken whisper ending in a sob, much unlike his usual hoarse, collected tone. Pathetic. He was pathetic. Pain was stabbing in his temples, a familiar headache building, the moon was nearly full.

"Sirius?"

He could hear Tonks crying something, a name, his name, Moody warning her off, constant vigilance eh?

What was that moisture on his cheeks, was he weeping? He inhaled the unfamiliar smell once more.

"Get a grip you wimpy werewolf, don't make me jinx you to prove it. It's me and I'm here to stay!"

That was so typical for Sirius, the Sirius back at school, the Marauder, that it startled him into shaky laughter. He stepped back, stared wonderingly into his dead best friend's eyes.

"So how much time before it's wearing off?"

"Before what is wearing off?" The silver eyes narrowed, puzzled.

Was he supposed to ask that stupid question?

"Don't be daft. The Polyjuice potion of course! How much time? I want to see you, I need to see it's really you,"

The man stepped back, he actually stepped back from him.

Suddenly Remus was afraid of the answer, afraid of what he was going to hear. He felt the wary curiosity of his friends, the sudden rising distrust in the air. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Moody's grip on his wand tighten. He shivered.

"I didn't take Polyjuice potion. I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that."


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 15 – Metamorphmagus

Her feet were cold and wet. A couple of minutes ago, her feet had been uncomfortably hot and wet. And why were her feet wet? Because she, Nymphadora Tonks, metamorphmagus and one of the youngest Aurors in service, was clumsiness incarnate and had dropped her teacup on her feet. Again. That said, considering recent events, for once she had a good excuse for her clumsiness.

After all, dead cousins did not turn up every day in the skin of big, bald, dangerous and good-looking strangers. Of course not quiet as good-looking as her cousin had been before he went to Azkaban, and certainly not even half as good-looking as Remus, but all in all it was a certain improvement on the way Sirius had looked after his escape from the wizard prison.

If he really _was_ Sirius.

Remus seemed to believe him without reservation and so did Kingsley, but Tonks was sceptical and she was certain that Grumpy, also known as 'Old Scarface', 'Constant Vigilance', or more commonly 'Mad-Eye Moody' had his doubts as well.

Sure, he did know many of the things only her cousin was supposed to know. But still…

Tonks directed a stream of hot air from her wand to her feet and listened to the stranger's gruff, short-clipped explanation.

It all seemed so far-fetched. Unspeakables bringing him back from the Chamber of Death in the Department of Mysteries? Scrimgeour hiring him as new teacher for Hogwarts? Tonks had heard from Harry about the school's difficulties in finding new DADA teachers and the Ministry had not been very lucky either. But bringing people back from the dead was a bit extreme, wasn't it? Besides, Sirius had never been a teacher. Up to the moment of his death in the very same room, battling Voldemort's minions, Sirius had been a wanted man by the Ministry for the alleged murder of one Peter Pettigrew and quite a few Muggles. Of course, Sirius had been innocent of those crimes, but still.

If Kingsley and Old-Man-Angry didn't want to question the man, Tonks supposed that she would have to do so herself. Damn all senior Aurors and their imprudence. She _really_ didn't want to be the one to hurt Remus' feelings. But she would not stand by either and watch as he was lied to by some impostor.

"Why would they do that?" Tonks started as she heard her own voice speaking.

All heads turned to her.

"Do what?" inquired Remus in his sweet, husky voice. Awww.

The bald wannabe-Sirius stared at her with a very knowing, male deadpan expression that made her want to hit him.

"Why would the Ministry bring Sirius back from the dead and hire him as a teacher for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? What are his qualifications? Never mind the fact that Sirius has never been a teacher, I bet there are easier ways to hire one than to bring him back from the dead! Besides, Sirius is not exactly popular at the Ministry and in the wizarding world, is he? Many people still think him guilty of the murder of Pettigrew, even if WE know he was innocent."

There, that was plain. Answer that, bullet-head. And stop staring at me like that, with those weird glowing eyes. Uh oh. He's standing up. What is he doing now? He's coming over here. And he's walking differently too. That's not Sirius. I'm sure of it! Sirius would never look at me as if he wanted to eat me for dessert. My wand. Where did I put my wand…

"Smart girl."

Tonks started at the feeling of large fingers closing loosely around her throat. She had not seen the man move. Nobody could move that fast, but somehow he was now standing behind her chair, one hand around her neck, the other effortlessly holding her wand-arm behind her back. She felt his warm breath as he bent down and…_smelled_ her hair?

She tried to jerk her arm loose but it might as well have been petrified. The hand around her throat stroked her skin in warning. Tonks watched Mad-Eye's and Kingsley's wands point at her and met Remus' narrowed, suddenly suspicious gaze directed over her shoulder. She saw him raise his nose and test the air.

_Uh. Oh. Full Moon._

"Sirius. Let. Tonks. Go." Remus' quiet voice had dropped to a menacing growl.

"Don't make me jinx you, lad," warned Moody.

Tonks felt a strong arm close around her middle and the floor suddenly dropped away from her feet. The man was using her as a shield! She nearly screamed when she felt a wet tongue slowly lick up the right side of her face. _Ewwww. Pervert! That's just so wrong! I knew it. I knew that's not Sirius! Don't move, don't give him a reason to hurt you. Let Moody and Remus sort him out. He's so going to regret that he just did that._

She could not help herself. She started struggling madly. The arm around her tightened even more, the way it felt, he was nearly crushing her lungs and a low, menacing growl rumbled through the large chest pressed against her back.

"Fuck Black. He ain't in charge right now. The name's Riddick. Richard. B. Riddick. You people fucked with my head. I don't like people fuckin' with my head. Time for pay back."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 16 – Wrong Decision

Riddick's unblinking gaze did not waver from the scarred face of Moody. He lifted the bird with the pink hair up a bit more under his chin and tightened his arm to keep her from wriggling out of his grip.

He did not need his heightened instincts to tell him which of the three men facing him with their wands brandished was the most dangerous adversary in the room.

The old warrior had so many scars criss-crossing his face that his mouth looked more like a diagonal gash than a human mouth. A large part of his nose was just missing, and the large, round and electric blue eye kept rolling crazily in every direction beneath his mane of grey hair. Riddick was not going to let himself get distracted by this though.

The shrewd and appraising look in the man's other dark and beady eye told the real story.

This was not just some crippled war veteran, despite the wooden leg. The man's face did its own advertising. He obviously had been in more fights than he could remember. And he was still standing here.

_Strong survival instinct. He'll be the first to attack._

The werewolf's reactions were interesting as well. His initial obvious rage and fear for the woman in Riddick's hold, as well as his confusion, considering Black's actions not long ago, had been replaced by an uncanny animal stillness. Riddick's attempt to lure him into an attack by licking the girl's face had failed. If anything, Lupin was looking more in control now than he had the whole evening. Despite his calm stance, he was obviously lying in wait; looking for a weakness in his prey. Lupin's eyes had the fixed stare of a stalking wolf.

Riddick was not even slightly impressed. He had met and killed bigger and worse predators than this one could ever hope to be.

As for the third, dark skinned man, he was surreptitiously trying to edge closer to the door and put Riddick in a classical crossfire situation. _Nice try, but I don't think so._

"Don't. Move." breathed Riddick, his gaze flickering from target to target. He dropped the girl, his left hand moving up her chest with the speed of a striking snake and closing warningly over her neck. His other hand tightened on his wand.

"Careful, lad. Don't make me hurt you," growled Alistair Moody, as he lifted his wand higher. His magic eye had spun round in his head and was only showing the white now.

_Bring it on, old man. You don't know who you're fuckin' with._

"Let's try and calm down, everyone," suggested Kingsley Shacklebolt in his deep, strangely soothing voice. "What is it you want…Riddick?"

"I don't know if you are still in there Sirius," said Remus Lupin, "But once this is over, you better have some really good answers ready for my questions."

_+You have no bloody idea, Moony! I'm tied to a bloody half-wit! What the hell do you think you are doing Riddick? Let my cousin go this instant! You have NO idea what these three people are capable of doing to you if you keep it up. Alastor alone could turn you, could turn US into something that would make Kreacher look good!+_ raged Sirius unheard in Riddick's head.

"Get your dirty HANDS off me you animal! REMUS, DO something! I can't get to my wand!" shrieked Tonks in a strangled voice, both hands clawing at Riddick's arm. She was weakening fast.

"The memory you fucked with. I want it back. Now." said Riddick and pinched a precise spot on Tonks neck. She froze and let out a startled, high whimper. He dipped his head slightly and whispered into the pink hair, "Thought I told you to keep quiet."

Lupin growled low in his throat and Shacklebolt took an involuntary step forwards.

"DON'T FUCKIN' MOVE OR YOU'LL BE THE FIRST ONE I SHIV!" bellowed Riddick, his eyes burning. He felt his jaw tighten.

"Hold back, Kingsley, Lupin. What do you mean, you want your memory back?" questioned Moody.

Riddick took a deep breath. More fuckin' mind games it was then. Two could play that game.

Bollocks! This is no game, you paranoid idiot. Perhaps Alastor doesn't even KNOW about the memory charm. I wonder what Kingsley's job in the Ministry is by now. He was the one who performed the memory charm on you, remember? Ask him. Ask him to undo what he's done. See how he reacts. And don't try anything or you will get me killed with you!+ Sirius' angry ghost voice was disgusted.

_Big Loss._

"I'm talkin' about the black poster-boy over there brainwashin' me back at Hagrid's hut. That nasty habit of his is gonna get his ass ghosted if he don't put my head right again, now. I want that memory back. And I'm thinkin' I might keep the girl as well."

He deserved some compensation, right? Her cousin obviously disagreed, judging from the roar in his head. Spoilsport. The wolf man was funny to watch, though. His obvious rage at the suggestion was nearly entertaining enough to distract Riddick from his own anger.

As for the woman in his arms, he felt her jump and then go very still, her muscles readying themselves for another attempted escape. He pinched her neck again and risked a glance downward, lowering his gaze for just a second.

"You don't listen, do you? Told you not to mo-"

"STUPEFY!" yelled three voices at the same instant.

Red lightning hit him from three directions at once and then everything went black.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 17 – Trapped

"Enervate," said a woman's voice from far away.

Pain. Red hot pain in his chest, his head, his arms and legs. His eyes burnt as if they had been torn from their sockets, boiled like hard eggs and stuffed back inside and they refused to open. His heart was stuttering, beating, stuttering, then slamming inside his chest like a crazed wild animal trying to get out of a trap. He recognised the typical after-effects of at least two stunning curses and moaned.

"Sirius! Sirus, can you hear me?" said the woman, her voice gentler now.

Sirius? Oh yes, that was his name. He was Sirius. The woman's voice was familiar and triggered mixed feelings of relief and annoyance. It further brought up half-forgotten memories of good cooking, red hair and constant nagging due to her obsessive need to mother grown men as well as every kid not bright enough to evade her authoritarian way of taking charge. To her defence, it was probably not really her fault, that she had become like that; Sirius remembered the short, sweet and shy girl she was back at school. Bringing up six young wizards and one witch had changed her into a short, plump and kind-faced woman, who managed her red-headed swarm of kids and her husband, Arthur Weasley, with the efficiency and fuss of Mother Goose.

"Sirius, I think you are awake. Open your eyes, dear, and let me check if you have a concussion," insisted the voice; a little louder this time and with a commanding edge to it.

It was the sort of voice that can make the dead sit up in their grave, open their eyes and feel bad for being unkempt and wearing a dirty sheet. He did not stand a chance. He opened his eyes a slit and winced at the blinding headache.

On the second attempt he managed to croak her name, "Mol-ly."

Molly Weasley sniffed once, a bit teary-eyed, and wiped her eyes on her flowered apron. Then she seemed to pull herself together and was now beaming down at him, as if he was about five years old and just had done something very smart. She had lost weight since the last time he saw her; her shabby witch's robe was a faded blue from too many washings, but she was wearing a brand new looking, midnight blue, glittering witch's hat, that looked slightly comical above her freckled face. He tried an answering smile, and discovered that he was genuinely glad to see her.

"How many wands am I holding up?" asked him Molly Weasley.

_+Good grief. She hasn't changed at all.+_ As he squinted up at her chubby hand, his headache increased slightly, but his sight was not altered, so that probably meant that he had no concussion.

"One. Molly, where are Remus, Alastor and Shacklebolt?" said Sirius after clearing his throat twice and tried to sit up. "What happened? We were talking in the kitchen and then… oh bloody hell." He grew pale as he remembered exactly what had happened then.

"You really should try not to swear," chided Mrs Weasley.

"Tonks," groaned Sirius. He would never be able to face his young cousin again_. +She must hate me now.+ _

"She is quite angry at you," admitted Molly and pushed a cushion behind his back in a practised and not too gentle move. "With good reason I should say. Remus told me how you attacked her-"

"That wasn't me!" snapped Sirius angrily. "That was that … _ + Killer. + " _ … other man, whose body I'm sharing." he ended lamely. "It was Riddick, who-"

"Well, you should have stopped him from doing that," interrupted Mrs Weasley. "I'll go now and fix you some sandwiches and tell Alastor and Kingsley that you are awake for questioning."

"What? I couldn't… there was no way to…" began Sirius angrily, but by then she had already bustled out of the room. Furious, he could hear her resolute steps fading in the staircase.

He looked around his old, dark bedroom with the high ceiling and the now empty portrait of his Great-great-grandfather, Phineas Nigellus Black, and scowled. How he hated this place! And especially this room. His old bedroom. In all the years after his escape from Azkaban he had avoided sleeping in here. He remembered the time, when the old portrait had been the only person to address him in a nearly friendly, if very arrogant manner.

Number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The one place he never ever wanted to set foot in again had to be the first place his own best friends had dragged him to again. He should not be angry at them for doing so, as the old Black family house had been the Headquarters for the Order of Phoenix for a several years now. But he was. He was angry.

To Sirius, the house only held years of bad memories. His childhood as the only Black child going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and not getting selected for Slytherin House, where every pure blooded Black child was supposed to go, had not been a happy one.

To the world and the other children at school he was the pampered heir of one of the oldest and richest wizarding families. He wore the best robes money could buy, he was a brilliant student (anything else would have gotten him severe beatings by the hand of his father); girls loved his looks. Only his best friends, James, Lily, Remus and …the other one… only they knew the truth. Even now, Sirius could not bring himself to think the traitor's name. The traitor lived. He still _lived._

To his family Sirius was a freak, a less-than-nothing, an error of nature, that had to be corrected as often and as much as possible. He had been made very aware that his Sorting into Gryffindor House was a big disappointment to his family and that frequenting blood traitors' children like James Potter and Arthur Weasley and mudbloods like Lily Evans had changed his status in the family somehow from being the proud heir of the Black fortune into something barely better than the house-elf; something that should be punished and rejected until he 'saw reason.' His hated cousin Bellatrix and his younger brother Regulus had made very sure that his parents were kept up to date on his every movement at school. The Black Family Motto really said it all: _Toujours pur_ ("always pure"). Yeah, right.

These people had never been 'family' for him. He did not behead house-elves, he refused to torture Muggles for fun, he did not sympathize with the rising dark power, Voldemort. He had fought back with every weapon a teenager can think off and at sixteen he had enough of his parents' pure-blood mania and had run away to live with James Potter's parents for a year. At seventeen he had inherited gold and a house from his Uncle Alphard. His loving 'mother' blasted Uncle Alphard's name from the tapestry showing the Black family tree when she heard about it. How she would have hated learning that he finally got the house after her death. Nearly as much as he hated having it.

Sirius swung his legs out of his bed and stood on shaky legs. He was still wearing the same wizarding robe that Riddick had worn upon his arrival at the house, but his shoes were standing beside the old wardrobe. He walked over slowly, carefully, the muscles in his legs were still cramping from the after-effects of the triple stunning spell. Somebody had cleaned his shoes, and Sirius was certain that it was not Kreacher. The old house-elf would have put scorpions in there, if he had thought he could get away with it. Sirius was still tying the second lace, when the first wizard walked in.

"And just where are ye thinking ye're going, lad?" asked Alastor Moody. He was not smiling and his hand rested upon the pocket Sirius knew held his wand.

"Alastor. It's me," said Sirius warily. He did not bother going for his own wand. He knew that there would be no wand in his pocket.

"That's what I'm going to find out," said the old Auror in a voice that Sirius had never heard from him before. Not directed at him. Sirius' eyes widened slightly at the sight of Moody's wand pointing at his head. He was very careful not to make any sudden movements. Behind Moody, the tall silhouette of Kingsley Shacklebolt stepped forward, blocking the door. His wand too was pointed at Sirius. In Sirius head, something seemed to stir to life. Something that reacted to the threat directed at him, no, not at him. At his body_. +Riddick.+_

"Alastor, is this really necessary, couldn't you wait for Arthur," came the worried voice of Molly Weasley from the staircase. "I know that this is Sirius, I've talked to him and-"

"Mrs Weasley. Please go back to the kitchen and stay there," came Kingsley's deep, slow voice firmly.

Somewhere in the house a lone wolf started howling.

Author's note: I'm sorry, there has been a mix-up in the older chapters and I think that one chapter must have been missing. Please browse back and see if you really have read everything… you might have a pleasant surprise of one chapter you never read before. Don't forget to leave feedback. And now you'll have to have patience, because this is as far as I have written so far…


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 18 – Legilimens**

"Sit down. Hopefully this won't take long, Kingsley." said Moody and took one clonking footstep forward.

Sirius stared at him. He did not like the look in Moody's eyes, both of which were focused on his face for once; even the magical one. It was an unnerving experience.

He answered slowly, "What won't take long?" while trying to keep the three of them in his line of sight.

Kingsley Shacklebolt stepped forward as well, and was now standing side by side to Alastor Moody, his wand still firmly pointing at Sirius.

Even though Sirius' question was directed at Alastor Moddy, he answered in his stead, "We first thought of using Veritaserum, but it would have been difficult to get some at this time of the night and brewing some would take a full moon-cycle to mature. Do you remember that I was in charge of the search for you - if you truly are Sirius Black - after your escape from Azkaban?"

Sirius nodded. His eyes narrowed. "And what has my escape got to do with anything here?"

"As such, I had complete access to your file; including all the classified information about your family, your upbringing, your marks at school, what you ate in Azkaban. Everything. If you are Sirius Black, then I know something about you that comes in handy today," said Kingsley.

"I can't wait to learn what that might be," growled Sirius, who was getting angrier by the minute. Reminding him of Azkaban of all things on top of doubting his identity!

"You have always been lousy in Occlumency." said Shacklebolt and lifted his wand.

"Legilimens!"

The room swam before his eyes and vanished; image after image was racing through his head.

He was eight, watching his father carelessly strike Kreacher across the face over some spilled soup, effectively knocking the elf off his feet before turning to his wife, "Walpurga, that elf is a disgrace to the house."

He was thirteen, a young Snape had just hit him with a bad Conjunctivitis Curse, he was stumbling blindly through the castle in search of James, his eyes nearly swollen shut.

He was fifteen and the pain of his first transformation to his dogform, bones, sinews, muscles changing left him in a whimpering heap, but Remus was worth it, Remus was worth anything and now it was his other best friend's turn to shudder and swell strangely, James turning into a stag.

He was racing on his flying motorcycle through a foggy night that cursed 31 October 1981, the night where his best friend died. He was flying fast, still hopeful, still so desperately HOPEFUL and confident that he would, no, COULD not be too late, terrified of what he would find at James place. He was staring at the Dark Mark hovering over James' and Lily's house.

He had tracked down the traitor, Peter, how could you. Peter screaming at him, Peter GRINNING and screaming that he, Sirius, had killed Lily and James before setting off a huge explosion. The blast had knocked Sirius down. When he picked himself up from the street Peter had vanished and there was blood everywhere and there was screaming... Five years later, his cell in Azkaban. There was still screaming going on. The screams in his head had not stopped for ten years.

_+Nooooooooooooooo+_

Helplessly screaming in his own head, Sirius felt Kingsley sort through his memories, felt him hesitate over those memories of Azkaban, the memories of the Dementors, felt his decision to retreat, felt that he finally believed him ... and then something happened. The images changed, became sharper, clearer somehow. And they were flying by much faster.

The old cell in Azkaban changed, expanded, grew, morphed into some kind of unfamiliar and incredibly istrange/i underground hell; unfamiliar ragged convicts were beating each other up over food and rags or makeshift weapons; everywhere he looked there was but bestiality and violence.

He could see perfectly in the dark but he, Sirius/Kingsley/Riddick knew that the other convicts could not see HIM. He was crouching in the dark, a make-shift knife in each hand, waiting with inhuman patience for his target to pass.

He was moving, slashing, killing. Robbing the corpses, acquiring more weapons, moving up, working his way through the different levels of Slam, killing again and again and again, his hands coated in blood, each time closer to the exit, the one thing that kept him going, the call of the stars, of peace, no people around to trigger him off, no more killings, silence.

He was chained up again, Johns, blue-eyed, red-haired devil shoving a horse-bit between his teeth, making fun of him. Transporting him with civilians on a back road through space. On a ghost lane. A long time between stops. A long time for something to go wrong. Feeling, hearing the meteorites hit and breach the hull. Fucking helpless. Helpless because he was chained up.

He was being tossed around and then freed by the crash. His first look outside, a world with three suns, his eyes nearly bleeding from the bright glare. He got his first look at little Jack with her shaved head and uncanny old green eyes, stupid kid hero-worshipping him of all people.

Trusting him. Trusting HIM to protect her. Fuck if he knew why he put up with the kid that long. For a while that trust chained his beast, so when he killed again, he did not kill out of rage but he killed to save her and not just his own skin.

He was dragging the kid and the old man into his own fucked by god semblance of life, always either a prisoner somewhere, or a criminal elsewhere. Only life he knew. Only one he had to share. He was reliving their escape from Chillingsworth's ship, more monsters to kill for the kid, a fitting repayment for her trust.

But the monsters kept coming. The monsters always kept coming and sometimes they did not look the part right away.

He was leaving the kid and the holy man on Helion-Prime. Trying to protect her from himself now. Retreating to that iceball of an outpost. Mercs turning up, Toombs the stupidest merc in the Galaxy turning up for him. The Holy Man, Imam must have turned him in then. Turned him in for the money.

He was flying back to Helion Prime, well decided to kill the old man and take the kid away. As it turned out, he did not get to kill Imam, the old man having an acceptable reason for his treachery. Some brainwashed galactic killer army had been heading for his planet and the old man and some elemental woman both thought he, Riddick, could save their planets. The fuck if he cared. What he wanted was to see that the kid was okay.

He was having a look around in the Necrocommander's ship after following that poisonous bitch, Lady Vaako, inside. Killing a few Necros on his way out again. He was caught by mercs again, just his rotten luck. He was hauling the kid's ass out of a new Slam. They were running before a sun, that turned people into ash and earth into lava.

He was loosing the kid to the Necros.

He was losing it. Going mad. Going after her. Going after an army of planetal proportions for her. The very same army that was responsible for the destruction of his own home-world, Furia, if he was to believe that Elemental woman. He was finally acknowledging the one thing, that he had successfully hidden from himself such a long time. He could not live without the kid in the world. She had to be there. She was his. His to protect. His... just his. He was fighting for her so hard that at some point there was but one man left to fight, the Necrocommander himself.

And then he was about to loose that fight. The most important fight of his life. The only fight that ever mattered. He was about to die for her, when the kid turned the tables on him again, attacking the Necrocommander from behind, saving him, at the price of her own sad precious, precious life.

His Jack, who called herself Kyra now.

"Are you with me Kyra?"

"I always was with you. I was."

That familiar little sigh they make when life leaves the body. Her green eyes, sightless, staring up at him. Ripping what little humanity he had left out of him. Taking him with her.

He was holding her in his arms and became aware that he was not alone with her, at this keypoint of his life. Sirius Black was with him, seeing this. That was bad enough, but could not be helped. But there was another one, watching, listening, feeling what he felt.

An intruder.

Inside his head.

Riddick reacted without thinking.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 19 – Payback**

Kingsley Shacklebolt stumbled back under the sudden onslaught of searing hatred in his head. He felt the incredible strength of will of the man in front of him overpower him, rip his memories from his head, sort through them and discard them, until Riddick found what he sought: the memory charm he, Kingsley, had performed upon him at Hagrid's hut.

The scene flashed before his eyes, the conversation degenerating into a fight, Moody binding Riddick with the Petrificus Totalus curse, and his own hypno-suggestion destined to get the man to come peacefully with them. Riddick's fury was painful in its intensity; Kingsley's mind was bursting with pictures of physical violence, torn limbs, ripped arteries and slashing knives unleashed by the creature in front of him. He knew that Sirius was struggling to shield him from the worst of it, or he would be dead by now.

His hand lost its grip on his wand; he could see it tumbling to the ground in slow motion and the big, tan hand shooting forward like a striking snake and catching it before it could touch the floor. Warm liquid was running from his nose and ears. The pain was like nothing he had ever experienced in his long years as an Auror, comparable only to the Cruciatus Curse. The ground was rushing up to him; he could dimly hear Alastor's horse voice shout a stunning curse, and saw it deflected to the ceiling by Riddick's magical shield in a blinding flash of red. He saw Riddick spin through the air in an impossible acrobatic move toward Alastor, and then his head collided with something hard, while his spirit slipped away into blessed darkness.

- + - +

Riddick looked down.

Kingsley Shacklebolt's contorted body was lying at his feet in a fetal position, blood was gushing from his nose and ears, but he was still breathing. Alastor Moody was half sitting, half lying propped up against the wall, his right arm bent at an impossible angle. His magical eye was spinning wildly in his head as he looked up at Riddick. Riddick ignored him and put Moody's and Shacklebolt's wands into a pocket of his wizard robe.

He could feel Sirius' fight for control of his body, heard his rant in his head, but the fuck if he was going to listen to that man again. He had promised not to kill Sirius' friends and he had kept his promise. He never promised not to maim them.

Riddick crouched down in front of the older man and whispered, "Thank your pal Sirius for your lives. If it had just been me, I'd have ghosted the two of you by now."

He straightened and glared at the other man at his feet, "I still might."

Another eerie howl rang through the house and they could hear the woman's worried voice downstairs, "Kingsley? Alastor? Are you two coming down? I was in the kitchen and Remus was making such a din in the cellar, did you call me? I think I heard something."

Moody's healthy eye swiveled up to Riddick. He rasped, "Don't hurt Molly, she's done nothing to you. If you hurt her, or if you leave this house, the Order will hunt you down like a rabid dog."

"Sure you will. I'm scared shitless now."

They could hear Mrs Weasley open the door downstairs and greet somebody. Moody sucked in his breath, obviously preparing to shout a warning to the people downstairs.

Riddick was faster, _"Silencio!"_

Moody's mouth opened in a soundless warning. Sirius had stopped yelling at Riddick as well and was probing at the walls that Riddick had erected around his thoughts. Riddick could feel his worry and anger as if they were his own. _Fuck you, Black! They only got what they were diggin' for._

Tonks' voice floated up to them, "Hi Molly! I went to the Ministry and brought back some Veritaserum for the fiend. That face-licking monster will spill his guts in not time. Where are Mad Eye and Kingsley? Oh, and Arthur says he'll be late; he's been called for an emergency. Somebody put levitating charms on a whole truckload of tyres …"

Her voice trailed off, as the two women went back to the kitchen. The wolf in the basement howled again. Kingsley Shacklebolt let out a soft moan and shuddered, still in a state of shock.

Riddick cracked his head from side to side and smiled. Moody's eyes widened as realization dawned. He tried to struggle to his feet, while shouting out another pointless, silent warning, but only managed to kneel before he slumped down again pulling a painful face. Their eyes met.

Riddick gave him an amused look.

"Don't be worried about Mrs Weasley. See, I'm not interested in _Molly."_


End file.
